Barren Cross
by lTristitial
Summary: In a world called Altera, a young boy Yahiro in the age of 12 and a young girl Yuni inthe age of 11 were living their lives in Saint's Haven when Dragon Cultists launched an attack. They were taken in by the Divine Order as orphans and later joined the ranks of the clerics with Yuni as the first and one and only female cleric ever to be. And so, their journey begins.
1. Chapter 1: Genesis

Disclaimer: I do not own the game and some of the characters(characters that are not mine are in the game)  
>Rated: M<br>Author's note: this is just the introduction, i'm still trying to type and figure out how to publish the main body  
>please commentate, i need peers other than my friends that also play the game. Hope you like it<br>~Blaze

Barren Cross  
>Genesis<p>

Characters: Yahiro, Yuni, Yahiro's parents, the  
>Divine Order, Dragon cultists.<p>

"Yahiro's Point of View"

"Old Saint's haven"

It's already been 5 years since the Divine Order took me in, I still remember "that" day.

T'was a peaceful day in Saint's haven, I was playing with a childhood friend, her name was Yuni. Garrison bells rang; we didn't know what to do. My parents came prepared for a fight as if they knew exactly what was going to happen. At last, the wall was destroyed and soldiers wearing masks that looked like a dragon were flowing into the city. "Dragon Cultists has broken the wall! Garrison people, make haste!" a guardsman shouted, finally my parents charged in to help the guards; I gained confidence that the king's men would come and help my parents. I was wrong… right then and there Yuni fell down to her knees in fear, trembling, and shaking, we were too scared to move, little did I know I was about to get killed but then my father came to the rescue, he held me by the shoulders, "we have gambled all this for our happiness and you my boy is our happiness, we love you. I want you to run with Yuni and whatever happens, don't look back, always go forward and never give up. [To Yuni] Yuni… take care. [Back to me] Now go! Make haste child!" those were his last words to me. I didn't want to go, but I looked her in the eyes to make her understand, in reply she nodded and stood up, I didn't want to go… I unconsciously took he hand and ran away to where the citizens were going. Airships, there were only two airships left and a warship of the Divine Order. An airship began to depart, like a bird leaving the nest, but like a bird in the field, I witnessed it go down in flames as an unusual dragon cultist shot it down from one of our own towers. He looked at me, I felt his deathly gaze upon me and my bones were shivering from fear and excitement. In a blink he disappeared out of thin air I blinked again and he appeared right in front of me, I couldn't move… I was scared… dad… I closed my eyes and I awaited the pathetic death that was upon me… I opened my eyes and there I saw a divine knight fending that dragon cultist, "Make haste to the warship! Tell them brother Selphie has achieved his calling, go! NOW!" were the words that came from the divine knight. Immediately I grabbed Yuni's hand and did exactly what he had instructed us to do. The man in-charge took us inside and ran to the upper deck, "Man your stations brethren, make haste for a strategic retreat until then God help them, we will take Saint's Haven back!" the man yelled, as every person aboard the warship moved to set the sails. "Set sail to the Holy town of Kaleon, full speed ahead!" a man said from the main deck, ever since that day… I've never seen my parents again.

The Divine Order took us in, 5 years later, Yuni became the very first divine knight to be a female, and lately, she's been the center of attention in our division. It's really unfortunate for me whenever we're seen together. I find it funny how she can be so cheery and childish when she's with me, but a serious and beautiful cleric in my absence.

Three days have passed, tis but a beautiful day, morning had already broken as I had just woken up from my delightful slumber. I sat up from my bed and thanked God for giving me breath another day. As I was on my way to the dining hall, Yuni was patiently waiting for me in the hallway so that we may partake in breakfast together. Noon has struck, and I was called in the bishop's office. "Brother Yahiro, I will be sending you and another cleric of your choice to go and reinforce our brothers at Carderock Pass. Another thing, if Edan is in the town, you will be helping him in his quests even if he was expelled, he will be your first priority if he had already left for another town, then you shall serve in Carderock Pass." The bishop had told me, even though his words had confused me, I gladly said, "As God wills it your grace."

I already knew who I was going to take with me. I'm excited because this will be mine and her first time serving in the field and put our training into action. We set out tomorrow.


	2. Chapter 2: Exodus

_**Barren Cross  
>Ch.2 Exodus<strong>_

Characters for this Chapter(CFTC): Yahiro, Yuni, Bandits, Goblins, Soldiers, Black Knight, Mysterious traveler.

"Yuni's P.o.V."

Morning has broken and we're just getting prepared to embark on this journey. I'm so excited about this mission, because it's the first mission I'll be doing, more importantly with him. Out of all the divine knights he could've chosen, I wondered, why did he pick me? Now the people are more furious at him. In this journey, the order has provided us with horses. I named my horse Jacob, while he named his after the third dragon God had created to insure order across the land, "Tristitia" he said proudly. _According to the legends that they've been telling us in our childhood, God made Altera with 3 guardians, the Sentinel dragon, the Tempest Dragon, and the Dragon of Sorrow Tristitia. Evil had its ways and made a 4__th__ dragon, the dragon of the Void. It wreaked destruction upon the land, and so the 3 guardians set to face the void dragon, they barely won, Tempest had been corrupted by the blood spilt on him while battling the enemy, with Tristitia mortally wounded, Sentinel had to fight tempest… at the end of the battle, Sentinel won, and Tempest's lustre had broken into pieces. Ever since, both Sentinel and Tristitia had disappeared leaving the Ancients as guardians._

My heart's beating fast, what is this excitement I feel? Is it because this is my first task in the field? Or maybe… no that can't be right… I need to clear my mind of such non-sense. It seems not long ago when we departed from Kaleon. An unusual fog was upon us… Yahiro gave the signal to stop, "are you afraid of the mist Yahiro?" I asked mockingly, and it was a bad omen, even I felt the chill of the scene. Something is off. We drew our maces and prepared for an ambush, the first blow came from an arrow that struck my horse down. I couldn't move out of shock, I fell. My body was in pain. I couldn't move. A voice was calling out to me… I tried opening my eyes, but everything was still blurry. I saw a person whom I definitely thought is Yahiro, "Yuni! You need to Wake up!" I heard Yahiro's voice. Everything became clear, Yahiro was fending off some hooligans, "Behind you!" he exclaimed, as a reflex, I grabbed my mace from the ground and swung it behind me just enough to knock the bandit out. I stood up ready for more peril to come.

[Yahiro's P.o.V.]

Good grief. I almost died from a heart attack back there, but now, I have my own problems coming up. Right and left bandits came attacking me relentlessly without a second thought, almost all of them I struck down. 2 more bandits left, Yuni's taking care of the one and I have the other. "Forsaken be your divine order clerics!" the bandit in front of me exclaimed as he charged into me. What did the divine order do? Is he a non-believer? I stuck him and he fell down to the ground, I kicked his weapon away. I looked at Yuni and the bandit had already left. All the other bandits have fled, all but one. I approached the man with a question, "what has the divine order done that you have such an enormous grudge against it?" I asked, "In your order's hands, mine sister's blood was spilt." He had replied in a low hoarse voice as he looks at me with great disdain and sorrow in his eyes. "Blasphemy! The divine order would never such a thing!" I answered… he let out a sigh, "I see… you are innocent, you're a new cleric, of course they wouldn't tell you." "Tell us what?" Yuni cut in and asked. "_The Witch Hunt…_" he whispered, "Forgive me, child for accusing you. I do not hold a grudge against those that do not know of the hunt, but I hold a grudge on your order." "Mind telling us what the witch hunt is or what the order had done to you?" I asked, then he smiled and said "gladly." And so he tells us the story. _"It all began 3 years ago in the town of Tristan. I was living peacefully with my sister, a beautiful sorceress. I loved her so much, not only as a blood sibling, but also as a woman. However, fate likes to play with people's lives no? Of course being siblings, we could not be together. My sister went on a mission one day and came back with a cleric even though it was forbidden by Kasarana herself. However because of my sister's reputation, he was pardoned. Mine heart was troubled every time I see them together… Then came the day when priests' relics fell upon the town. Every sorceress in town was put in a bind spell; only clerics could've done it. Quickly the divine order charged in. A bloodbath of sorceresses, such a cruel and reverberating sight, but the cruelest sight of all, is being forced to witness her death as she was stabbed by the cleric whom she had loved. "You despicable witch." We the last words he said to her as she took her last breath. Ever since that day, I had nothing but hatred toward that filthy excuse for an order as my drive to live. I found out that they kept the hunt a secret form the people and those who spoke about it were silenced, that's when I realized that the new people joining the divine order did not know about this."_ "What about us?" I asked, "Me and my companion had been in the divine order for 5 years now, how come we didn't know of this?" I looked him in the eye with confusion. "As I said before, those who tried to speak of it were silenced." He said as he added, "I know I'm not one to ask, but please… don't let it happen again…" "Rest assured, I will try if God wills it." I replied in mercy. Silence befalls the scene.

I had no idea the Divine order spilt blood of many women and children… footsteps are nigh, the man pushed me aside as an arrow was shot from the woods. The shot was meant for me… he fell silent on the snow-laden earth. "Why would he save me?" I thought to myself, the shooter ran away as the footsteps faded. This man still had good tidings in his heart. We gave the man a proper burial and respects, I have caused the death of a suffering soul… may he rest in peace. We've gone on our way and approximately 3 hours have passed, we've been riding for so long we almost forgot about eating. We decided to stop at the nearest inn we could find, "Prayer's inn… seems like a decent inn." I thought to myself as I tied my horse to a pole. As soon as I walked in, most of the people fell silent as they turned to look at who was entering, and then turned back to what they were doing. We sat at the bar and requested for some bread and meat, and somehow this inn seems more decent than what I thought, the owner was a retired inquisitor. A soft voice from my right asked me, it came from a hooded traveler, "Are you clerics traveling to the south?" I was enchanted by the sweet soft voice that I couldn't answer immediately, surely this was a woman and not just any woman, she was an elven woman. Something was off about her I just can't put my finger on it and how did she tell that we were clerics when our clothing is covered? "I see, you guys are one of those who swore silence." She added, "No… we're only travelers." I replied. "I see…" we sat in silence, soon after we have rested; we departed again and went on our way to Carderock Pass.

[Yuni's POV]

I wrap my arms around him as he keeps on pressing the horse on going faster. I feel safe whenever I'm with him, I feel warm and comfortable just by laying my head on his back. My chest feels warm, I can't explain why, but I like it. Is this what they call love? I really don't understand. I looked behind only to see a hooded horse-rider was gaining distance on us. When I was about to warn him, he suddenly asked "how far?" I didn't understand his question, "How far is the pursuer from us?" he repeated, how did he know? He didn't even look back, "about 200 feet."

[Yahiro's POV]

I sensed something off from that elf in that inn, knowing that we were clerics was suspicious enough, but talking to clerics just locked my suspicion. "Hold on tight, I'm going to try and lose her." I beckoned, she held me so tight that I could feel her warmth over her tunic and mine… I shook my head and tried to focus. I lashed my horse to go faster. She tugged on my tunic but I ignored, she tugged again signaling me to look back, I look back and there I saw the pursuer getting ambushed by goblins. I was hesitating to either leave her behind or aid her; a distressful shriek came from her direction. My body slipped from my control, I turned the horse around and pulled my mace out and struck a goblin in the head. We helped her fight the goblins off, and as I suspected she was using a bow and arrow to fend them off. It was clear that she's the one who tried to kill me. A few minutes later the goblins have retreated, she gave out a relieved sigh. I pointed the tip of my mace to her throat, "So it was you who tried to kill me, state your name and reason!" I had exclaimed, "What are you talking about?" she replied in a confused tone as she removed her hood, I was once again enchanted. Yuni pulled me to the side all of a sudden, an arrow scratched my left arm, if she hadn't pulled me, I would've died. As a response, the elf shot a rain of arrows in the forest beside us, yet all we heard were quick footsteps fading into the woods. I made the wrong conclusion. "That precision… I see why you thought I was the one hunting you down. This is the work of another elf." The elf explained, "So it wasn't you?" I asked bluntly, she gave me a pouting look, "I maybe an elf but we elves have laws that I still follow and killing a human who hasn't done anything to hurt the elven race is against that law. And if I would kill someone I wouldn't do it in the shadows." She replied. I was ashamed for accusing her of something she hasn't done, "I apologize deeply, as a cleric and as a human, please forgive my hostility." I apologized as I bowed down symbolizing my shame. "I'm not going to blame you; elves shouldn't even kill humans in the first place. Oh, and before I go." She had said as she handed me a bag of gold coins, "You forgot it in the inn. Now then, I must depart to find my telezia." "Thank you… _pala telezia_. (May you find your destiny in elven)." Were my last words to her, then she giggled, "May you find your destiny." She replied as she mounted back on her horse and took off. "Shall we get going?" I asked Yuni, she nodded in reply and giggled. " someone has a crush " she sang in the most mocking tune as we mounted on the horse.

[Yuni's POV]

The words I spoke were only meant to tease him but, why is my chest aching? I guess this is what they call jealousy. Noon came to pass as we decided to have lunch by a field. He's so calm and collected, my heart skipped a beat. It was because we were alone together.

It's been 5 years since we saw his parents, I wonder if they survived? It was nice to have them as guardians; I never got to know my mother or my father. They told me my parents just left me by their door when I was still an infant. Well, it was sure nice of them to take me in, give me a new life, and protect me at times of need. So this time, I'm the one obligated to protect Yahiro… for their sake, and mine. I do hope we could get to see them again.

He laid down on the grassy meadow that we're on, looking up at the sky… such a magnificent sight; I could almost live here with him everlasting. We heard footsteps coming from the woods; we stood up and quietly snuck to see who it was. A night in black armor, the knight looked around to see if the coast was clear and pulled something. Carrots. He whistled to call something; a rabbit came out of its burrow with 3 of its offspring. The knight fed the rabbits, and it was too adorable to watch. Then soldiers came with gold-bordered red banners, this was "The royal army." We took a closer look so that we could hear their conversation.

"And here we thought the infamous black knight was a one ruthless bastard, but behold! The black knight I feeding little balls of fur with carrots." The captain said mockingly

"You lot think you threaten me?" the black knight replied as he gave a devastating look, like an evil entity's stare.

"You've killed my comrades and my friends, now in the name of the King, perish!" the captain had said as an order to attack.

In the blink of an eye half of the soldiers were killed. "Your recklessness will lead you to your own death, carry on." A warning came from the black knight. The soldiers pressed on yet again, and again the black knight swung his sword letting out a very formidable wave of wind and rubble so powerful that the blood of the soldiers were spilt all over the area. "You have witnessed my strength first-hand, do you lot want to join them in the grave?" he asked as looked our way. How did he know? Was the question I kept on asking in my mind, it's amazing that he has that much power, it's almost like he wasn't human… I was scared.

[Yahiro's POV]

I stood up from the bush that we were hiding in. "based on what we have witnessed, no. We are divine knights from the divine order." I announced, Yuni stood up shaking in fear. He smirked, "A female? In the divine order? Ha! They must have lost their noggins already… what's your business here eavesdropping?" the black knight asked. "We have none, just precaution when we heard footsteps."

"Your names?"

"Yahiro and Yuni, divine knights of Kaleon and survivors of the siege of Saint's Haven, and yours?"

He gave a frown and looked away, "Velskud, former knight of Kaleon. Heed my warning, do not dare meddle with my business and never, risk your neck for something that you don't even understand. Farewell." Velskud left.

We went back on our way after blessing the corpses of those that fell in the incident. We were nearing a town, however, my body was still at unease, it was quiet… too quiet. It was an ambush, the goblins that we fended off earlier suddenly popped out of the bushes. I immediately pulled out my mace, however, one by one they fell to the ground as arrows struck them coming from a very familiar traveling elf. It was the traveler; I had forgotten to ask for her name when we were back in the field. As she came closer, I lowered my guard down. Yuni and I dismounted from the horse, I took a step forward, but in a split-second, I felt a sharp pain. An arrow scratched my right cheek. The traveler dismounted from her mount and so the three of us were on high alert. While Yuni was tending my wound, the elf moved to our position to provide a watch. "Now we're even" the elf told me, I only laughed in reply, "Tell me cleric, what have you done to anger someone this much?" she asked me, but honestly, "I have no clue." Yuni slapped me at the back of the head, "Are you that daft?" she asked me, I just looked at her with a confused look. She gave out a sigh, "5 years ago, a boy and a girl was taken in by the divine order. The girl was the first flower to be in the order, then five years later, that boy took that flower with him on a journey. Now, who would that boy and flower be?" she asked, however I was still confused. "Ah so you're the rumored divine flower?" the elf asked, Yuni nodded in reply. After some thinking, I could finally comprehend what they're trying to say. So that means someone inside the divine order wants me dead for taking Yuni with me instead of them, but still, is something that little so much for them?

[Traveling Elf's POV]

I can't believe that one girl could bring the order to kill him; I didn't think that humans would be this bad in jealousy. It must be nice to travel with a companion. Well, I guess it's time to do them a favor. "Put your hoods on and ride as fast as you can, I'll follow behind and escort you to the nearest town which is Carderock Pass." I explained to them, and gladly, they heeded my instructions. I still have to figure out who's this elf that's trying to kill him and report it to the queen.

[Yahiro's POV]

We arrived at the gates of Carderock Pass safely. Finally, we can fulfill our mission. "I forgot to ask for your name." I asked the traveler, and then I remembered they are forbidden to say their real name to anyone until they meet _that_ certain person. "You can call me Sunrise, since you're a cleric you should already comprehend that that is not my true name." she replied with a bright smile, I could see why that name was perfect for her; I continued the introductions for me and Yuni. "I have my own telezia to follow; I shall see you if mine permits it, until then, 'Pala Telezia.'" Those were her last words as she said farewell and continued to venture. As for me and Yuni, we can finally start our mission. At last we arrived at Carderock Pass.


	3. Chapter 3: Twisted Fates

_**Barren Cross  
>Ch.3: Twisted Fates<strong>_

CFTC: Yahiro, Yuni, Velskud, Argenta, Irene, Deckard, Elena, Tristitia, Camelia, Edan, Angelica, Shian, Triana.

[Yuni's POV]

Three days have passed after our arrival. We've asked the townspeople of the whereabouts of Edan, yet all of them say the same thing, "We do not have knowledge about Edan." I gave out a sigh as we walked around some more. Deckard of the Free Adventurers' league approached us, "Greetings, are you the two clerics that's looking for Edan of Mana Ridge?" he immediately asked us, "Yes, have you learned anything new about this matter?" Yahiro responded, "I'm his league master, he's in the Valley of Mourning right now, I sent in 10 men earlier before they went in the valley, however only 2 of them came back. Please, save them!" Deckard had explained. There was no time to lose, and knowing Yahiro I already knew what he wanted to do. We had run through Crystal Stream and through the Dead Man's road, the stench of dead rotting monsters were excruciating. We finally arrived at a sign saying "Hark! The Valley of Mourning tis nigh!" seeing the skeletons of humans and monsters on the ground gave an obvious reason why they called this place the Valley of Mourning.

[Yahiro's POV]

We ran in to monsters left and right. I was taught not to hate, however, I am beginning to despise running in to monsters like this. "This is ridiculous!" she exclaimed, I could already tell that she was tired; I needed to get her out of here. I let out my rage, I'll ask forgiveness later. We entered a cave and surprisingly, it was cleared, fresh corpses lay on the ground of the cave. We had exited the cave and there we saw Edan and other adventurers on the ground as we saw Velskud carrying a red-haired girl on his arms, as he looked back, I saw a furious dragon staring at us. It was the same sensation I got from the siege at Saint's haven. I'm scared. Yuni tugged on my tunic but I couldn't move my body. He jumped off the cliff with the girl, I thought to myself that he couldn't have had survived that, so I calmed down slowly. Yuni tugged on my tunic again, only then did I turn to her, however, she was in tears. She was shivering, scared, terrified… worried. I keep forgetting that she was a girl. I stroked her head and placed her head upon my chest, she was so scared that she held me so tight that I almost had a difficulty breathing… "DEAR LORD! We forgot all about Edan!" I exclaimed, as we rushed to him. He grunted, he pointed to a sorceress, a boy and an elf girl then whispered "Please help them first." I casted sacred healing on all of them. Edan stood up, we were relieved, and that told us that he was alright. The elf girl stood up and Yuni carried the sorceress under by her arm, I carried the boy with his sword. We went back to town.

We talked to Deckard once more, apparently the red-haired girl was "the Prophet" that has the power to rid this world of darkness, however, evil seeks to manifest her power and to spread darkness. I was confused about how Edan got expelled from the order and joined the Free Adventurers' League and Velskud, he had a furious yet sorrowful aura around him, but what does he want with the Prophet? "Stop him." A voice whispered to me, as I looked around then at Deckard, "You must stop him." The voice whispered again. "Did any of you hear that voice?" I asked them, however they only stared at me like I'm crazy, "Come on Yahiro, maybe you're just tired." Yuni told me as she dragged me back to the inn. I suppose I was just tired. A day had passed and Edan and his companions had already set out for another quest, it was time for me and Yuni to help the division of the order here in Carderock. I have a feeling this is not going to be pleasant.

[Yuni's POV]

Morning came to pass. I sat up from my bed just woken from my slumber; my birthmark at the nape of my neck was hurting again, it's hot like a fire burning on my skin. Quickly I grabbed my clothes and got dressed. Today is going to be a bad day, back then my birthmark would only sting until morn, however, even until noon it still pains me. We went to Ashen Ruins just across the northern gate of town, these ruins served as a reminder that mankind is not as powerful as others think we are; the place became barren land after a siege of monsters occurred. We ran into the "Temple of Sleepers," and to our surprise we haven't encountered any monsters until we reached the sanctum. We entered the temple, and there he was. Velskud taking the prophet away and then there was Edan and his companions lay wounded on the ground, never have I felt fear more in my life as if I was looking at a real dragon before my eyes. "Did you cause all of this?" Yahiro asked, however, Velskud didn't answer. He left. I was looking around again when I saw a silver haired woman also lying on the ground, immediately I told Yahiro and so he ran toward her like there was no time to waste. He casted the Sacred Healing spell that they taught us at the order on her, slowly her eyes began to open. Yahiro offered her his had to stand up, "there is no way I will receive pity from a mere…" she looked up to Yahiro, then a tear fell from her eye, "human…" she took his hand, she hugged him. "I never thought I would be able to see you again, I'm glad you're alive." She had said to him, my chest was hurting. Yahiro gently pushed her away, "I am sorry, but have we met before?" He asked, her relieved face turned into a hurt expression as she burst into tears, "after that day, I never thought I would ever see you again, yet here you are, you even look the same as that day. That's right… you don't remember anything from the day you died…" she said as she wiped away her tears then her face became as if she was annoyed. "What?" Yahiro asked, "Never mind." Was the only thing she said, "Can you heal these lot here too?" she had asked, Yahiro just gave a nod, and casted sacred healing around them, I noticed the confused expression Yahiro had in his face, even I didn't understand this woman. I felt the warmth of his spell; grunts rang from the Edan and his companions.

"I'm still confused about the things which you had said, but I'm not the person that you think I am." Blaze explained

"But…"

"I'm sorry" Blaze answered

We started to walk away when she said these words to Yahiro, "Farewell… Tristitia…" He stopped walking, and then walked again. I'm worried.

[Yahiro's POV]

"She called me 'Tristitia…' but Tristitia was a dragon. I over thought, maybe her friend's name was just Tristitia. Was she trying to say her friend was a dragon? I'm a dragon? No…' I thought to myself as I looked at the stream in Carderock, "I look perfectly human." I said to myself. "Are you okay?" Yuni asked me, I tried to look her in the eye and smiled, "I'm fine." She frowned. My mind is full of things that I cannot comprehend right now, "Journey into the Valley of Mourning." The voice whispered to me once again, I had no control over my body, "we're going to the Valley of Mourning I told Yuni and started to run to the valley.

When we arrived at the Valley of Mourning, I could hear the whispers of the dead in my mind. "Why are we here Yahiro?" Yuni asked me; however, I also don't even know myself, why did I follow that voice's instruction? Quickly I saw some dark elves carrying a girl into the valley, I had no time to think, and we followed them. When we caught up to them, I realized they were only dragging a puppet as they turned around. I looked behind me and dark elves had already surrounded us in all sides, following them here was a bad decision and now, I dragged Yuni into this. Alas! We're surrounded by monsters.

Sweat is falling, blood was spilling, bodies are falling, there's no end to this. A dark elf caught my blindside, I fell down as the metal claws pierced my side. "Yahiro!" Yuni yelled out as a dark elf in red grabbed her by the neck, "Humans, mindless creatures aren't you? To think that you would invade my territory again. How dare you!? Just who do you humans think you are!?" the dark elf in red said. A loud cheer from the monsters brewed for the dark elf, "You humans feel shame when exposed to public right? How about you clerics? This cleric is a girl too, first time I've seen one, but… so dad, you have to learn your place." She announced as she ripped her tunic off. Yuni squealed, I couldn't do anything but close my eyes as I was held down with a dark elf's claws still piercing me. "A big turn of events!" the dark elf in red said, I opened my eyes and saw the dark elf staring at the nape of Yuni's neck, "We've found the key to the fall of the Astral Coven! However, the other one seems useless… hmph, do whatever you want with him, kill him for all I care." She added, I was paralyzed scared and furious. The dark elf that pinned me down pulled her claws out from my side, is this really the end for me? "No!" Yuni yelled out as she casted avoid spell on the monster that was about to kill me, but how did she use that type of magic? A monster knocked her down, the one family that I had left, is being hurt, hurt right in front of me. "Do you want to fight back?" a voice whispered to me.

"Yes"

"Take action, and in doing so I shall grant you my strength to do so." The voice had said to me.

I wanted strength, power to fight back, "Give it to me." I had said. In an instant my body was hurting but I felt as light as a feather, I had done sin a divine knight should never commit. I let my anger take control of me, my vision blacked out.

[Yuni's POV]

I feel pathetic; I promised myself I would get stronger in order to protect him, yet, here I am lay on the ground ashamed, scared. I looked at Yahiro and he had a different aura around him, why is this happening? What's happening to Yahiro? He's not the Yahiro I know, something's taken control over him; the Yahiro I know would not have a dreadful aura or a heartless look on his eyes. His eyes contain the emptiness of a void. A dark elf tried to lunge for him but he caught the elf by the face, a shock of electricity came from his hand and ran through the dark elf's whole body, when he let the elf go, she fell to the ground like her soul just left her body and blood ran down from her eyes, mouth, and nose. It was a reverberating site, after he killed the elf he went on and killed more, "How did I not sense this beforehand? He's not human! We need to report this to Yuven, troops retreat!" the dark elf in red exclaimed in panic, quickly she ran into a cave, However, unfortunately for the other dark elves, Yahiro faced his right hand to the dark elves and released five bright beams of light and obliterated half of the retreating dark elves, yet his eyes are still void only this time, tears of blood ran from his expressionless face. I hate this; I hate what's happening to us, why is God doing this to us? I want my old Yahiro back, the one who always has a smile on his face, one who would think twice about killing any creature God made, the one who would only kill if necessary, The Yahiro whom… I loved.

The dark elves have left, yet Yahiro's expression is still void. "Yahiro?" I called out to him, however, he only looked at me and said the last thing that I wanted to hear from him, something that I couldn't comprehend, "I am Tristitia, I am Blaze, we are one and the same, yet different and separated at the same time."

"I don't understand, what did you do to Yahiro? Give him back to me! The Yahiro that I know is-"

"Different" a soft voice cut me off.

It was the woman that Yahiro and I helped earlier, "How nice of you to join us Argenta." Tristitia had said, "It seems like you came back to your senses." Argenta replied, "No, I'm only out for one reason, because he wanted power to protect this human here." She frowned, "Wait, what do you mean by human? Aren't you humans yourselves?" I asked, "Have you been reading your Bible dear? I am Tristitia and Argenta here is one of Sentinel's offspring, in other words, we're dragons." Tristitia replied, "We only look human to blend in, if dragons weren't that special we would stay being a dragon." Argenta added, now I understand why we couldn't fine gigantic creatures that big in this world so easily. "Anyway, while I'm out and you're here Argenta, as you know this boy is my vessel, however, this will be the last time I will be using a vessel, it is time a new guardian is born… a new Tristitia will take my place." Tristitia said to Argenta, "This human boy?" "To put it simply, yes." I was confused, "What do you mean by the new Tristitia?" I had to ask, "He means that this boy will become the new Dragon of Sorrows." Argenta explained. Yahiro, no, Tristitia took off his tunic leaving only his chainmail on as he places his tunic on my back, "It seems that you are special too, you possess the mark of the Grand Arcane" Tristitia had said, "Really? That human?" "Yes it's at the nape of her neck." Both of them conversed. I started weeping, I want him back badly enough that I want to die, "please, give him back to me… I just want my one family back; I don't want to lose him!" I wept. Tristitia knelt down at me, "You will get him back, I must announce 1 thing before I go, Argenta, I'm going to release all my restraints from him, and I need you to be his guide." Tristitia said. Argenta gave a horrified look, "You're going to kill him! All that power released at once, you'd basically destroy his body!" Argenta exclaimed, "I know that, however you do not understand the capabilities of this boy's body, he can withstand and contain any power in his body, in other words he will not die so…" He looked at my terrified expression, "You don't need to worry about losing another loved one." He smiled as his presence faded, like his soul just left Yahiro's body. He fell forward and I caught him before a single strand could even touch the ground, I held his head on my chest. I cried once more.

[Yahiro's POV]

I'm in a pitch-black room where I cannot see a single thing. I was a lone until I saw a dragon fade in right in front of me, I tried to reach for my mace, however, it wasn't there. "Fear not my child." The dragon spoke in a very familiar voice,

"Who are you? Are you the voice that called unto me?" I asked

"I am Tristitia."

"The Dragon of Sorrows? That can't be right; this must all be a dream." I said as I pinched myself to assure that this was indeed a dream. I felt no pain, "Ah so this is a dream." I said and felt relief, "Not a dream Yahiro but your subconscious, in this world, you cannot wake up until I permit it." The dragon answered.

"But I am merely human, why would you appear to me?"

"Child, you comprehend nothing, therefore you have not a clue… you, have the strength of a dragon inside of you, strength that anyone would throw away their own being only to obtain this power."

"Inside? Me?"

"Yes, and to put it in simple terms child, I am you Yahiro. God has a plan for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, and I will reveal everything you need to know when the time is right, however this I tell you, I will release all restraints I had bestowed upon your body, you will receive my full potential, but it will give you a long, hard and suffering pain. Keep in mind, when I release my restraints and you have my potentials, you will not be able to turn into a dragon, or not yet at least. The pain from the broken restraints will awake you from this slumber, until I see you again, farewell." He vanished into the darkness, once again, I was alone, and as he said… the pain started to kick in. I woke up.

I woke up in intense pain, it felt like I'm being scorched inside, memories that don't even belong to me started to enter my mind. A soft hand held me down to bed. A girl in a red dress was at my bedside, I looked at her then her face shifted from worried to terrified then worried again, it's like she can't acknowledge what to feel. "You looked terrified when I looked at you, mind if I ask what is wrong." I asked, and then she met my eyes and suddenly looked away saying "Your eyes." Still being in pain, I forced myself out of bed looking for a mirror but, the pain had its way of restraining me. I fell to the floor writhing in agony, "where's a mirror!?" I asked furiously, quickly she took a hand mirror from her bag and showed myself to me to save the cost of moving. I found myself staring at the mirror, looking at the bloody red eyes of a beast that was me. I slapped the mirror out of her hand and broke it; she picked the mirror up as she knelt to it and wept. It had seemed like the mirror meant something important to her, and I broke it… I couldn't say anything anymore.

A few moments later, Argenta arrived in the room with an impatient look on her face and a set of clothes. "It's ridiculous how humans hold value in material things." She had said as she threw the garments to me, "And I suppose you don't." I said mockingly, she only gave me a bored look, "First of all at least put some clothes on, second, meet me at Ashen Ruins when you're done, we need to talk." She said to me, and then she left. With two memories forged inside me, my thoughts are mixed up, "Damn this!" I thought to myself… moments later the pain had stopped, I got dressed. The girl in the red dress was still crying, I knelt down to her, "I'm sorry, for your mirror, I know it meant something important to you, I know I seem like a jerk and a monster to you, but I'll pay you back, I promise." I said then stood up, "Irene…" she whispered, "Excuse me?"

"Irene… t-that's my name."

"Irene, I'll remember that. Farewell." These were the last things I said as I left for Ashen Ruins.

Argenta was sitting under a tree in the ruins with Yuni and Edan with his 3 other companions; the first thing I noticed about Yuni was that she was wearing an Astral Coven robe, the one the sorceresses wear, I'm not one to speak but why an Astral Coven robe? "Great, now that we are all here, I guess I have to explain some things to these two." Argenta started to talk as she looked at me and Yuni, "Um… how about a LOT of things to explain." I had added then she looked at me with an annoyed look, "First of all, Yahiro's friend here has the mark of the Grand Arcane so in conclusion for he, she doesn't belong in the divine order. Then of course the big part, Edan?" "Yes Argenta." Edan handed Argenta a letter. She opens the letter and clears her throat, "The letter says this, 'Now that we have knowledge why our brother Yahiro of Kaleon took our first sister Yuni with him in the mission I myself had given him,' then blah blah blah, 'The Order hereby states that our brother Yahiro and sister Yuni expelled from the Order for acts of treason and declared as Astral Coven spies.' And that concludes the written decree of Bishop Trent." Then she tore the letter into pieces. I couldn't understand any of this, Astral Coven spies? Expelled? Why is this happening!? I thought to myself. "Yuni will go to Mana Ridge so that she may learn how to make use and control her power since she holds the mark of the Grand Arcane, in other words, she will be trained to be a sorceress." She added as Yuni walked toward me. Her eyes and mine meet, she had a shocked look in her eyes, and then it softened, softened that I could almost see a flower in a meadow. "I'm going to miss you Yahiro." Yuni spoke to me as she gave me one last hug, "As she said I'm going to be away for a good while." Tears started to fall from her eyes, I held her in my arms. "Promise me you won't die and that we'll meet again."

"I promise."

"Goodbye." Was the last word that she said.

She kissed my cheek and started to walk away, I wanted to do something… "See you again." I corrected her, she stopped and looked back and said, "Definitely." Then she started walking again. As she had already left Argenta gave a small remark I did not like, "Finally the drama's over." I looked her in the eye, then she became quiet for a second. While Argenta sent Edan and his companions out for "chores" as she might say, she has been training me and teaching me the basics that I need to know about being a dragon and the history of what has happened so far. I've learned some pretty unique stuff I've never known or heard about like lustres, other dragons, what we can eat, what we can't eat, how long we could stay alive without eating which is about 20 years maximum, then she taught me about who our enemies are and what their goals are. She hasn't taught me how to fight using Tristitia's power so I'm just going to have to deal with it by still using Divine magic. 2 days have passed, Deckard banged at my door at dawn only to receive news that poison would soon consume all of Carderock Pass. After he left, I ran outside with people packing bags and the look of despair trace on their faces, I also saw Edan rush to Deckard that morning panicking and when he finished saying something to Deckard, they both ran off. This was bad. I ran to Argenta in Ashen Ruins, "About time you got here!" she yelled at me, "I have something for you to do, my slaves here have found a book that can purify the poison-" she added as I cut her off, "And how did this happen and who's responsible?" I asked her, however I did not like what her answer was, "Elena, the queen of the dark elves, you know the puny little red dark elf that almost killed you and your friend."

"What do you need me to do?" I asked

"Well since she's dead now and she's not a problem anymore, I want you to help those idiots get the proper tools for this so called purification device, your first stop is at Sanctuary Nexus, Edan and the others are already there, I just want you to keep them out of 'serious' trouble."

"Understood." I replied, then I went on my way, "And Yahiro…" I turned around, "Be careful… alright?" I smiled at her and confidently said, "Of course."

I finally arrived at the Sanctuary. This place used to be a temple of the Ancients, but ever since the Ancients were gone, this sanctuary had been in ruins like the Temple of Sleepers. Dead monsters everywhere as I was running further into the Sanctuary, the sight of blood frightens me yet fascinates me as well… I thought it was because I was a dragon now. I finally caught up with Edan and the others. "Edan!" I yelled out, him and his companions turned around, "Why Yahiro, to what honor do we have you here in our ranks?" Edan asked me.

"Argenta sent me to help you." I replied.

"Argenta? Sent someone to help? Ha! I can handle this on my own but I have these guys to babysit." The swordsman said proudly, then the sorceress slapped him at the back of the head, "Yeah, you're so strong that you got your butt handed to you by a goblin slinger." She had added "Well, we're doing fine right now. By the way, we haven't introduced ourselves properly yet.-" and so we sat down for a moment after they had just battled a group of goblins and orcs on my way here. Edan was a Divine Knight of the Order but same way with me, he got expelled for a reason he doesn't want to talk about. Then there's Angelica, a sorceress who wasted away her training money away to gambling. Shian, a swordsman that needs to get stronger and beat Varnak one of the 6 heroes form 50 years ago to see his father once again. Triana, a free elf who is out to find her telezia (destiny). I could already see in the way they act that they've gone through something that is not easy to overcome, especially Edan.

Only an hour had passed when we went back on our way to retrieve this so-called pure white orb. Well, judging by the name, this journey is not going to be easy. After a battle with more orcs, we finally reach the chamber where the orb lies. As we got through the gate to the chamber, Elena was there covered in her own poison with the pure white orb in hand. I was given another chance to take my revenge for the humiliation she gave us, I was the first one to charge in, "Yahiro! Stop!" Edan cried out, but I didn't listen. As I charged at Elena, I had not seen Elena's moves, her kick got to me and caused me to slide back, that's when they all attacked her at once. After a couple of hits, they knocked her down and got the orb back, "That was easy." Shian announced proudly… "It's not over yet." I had said, I sense a dark presence trying to escape from Elena's body, "Move!" I exclaimed as I pulled them all aside as a shadow monster erupted from Elena's body and shot spikes directed at Triana, luckily I got in front of her in time. Blood is running down on my garment and sleeve, the shadow pierced my left arm and abdomen. "Yahiro!" Edan cried out while Shian attacked Elena's shadow, and as the spikes retracted and pulled out of my body, I fell down on my knees with excruciating pain. I held my right arm out and pointed it at Elena's direction, "Move!" I yelled out to warn them about an attack that I was about to execute, and so they moved. I focused my mana on my hand and released 5 beams of light, "Disintegration" as Argenta called it, which was a pretty appropriate name for it since it disintegrated large parts of Elena's Shadow. The shadow was absorbed by the earth, we were relieved, however, the work is still not done. Goblins and orcs are still in the area and just when we thought that it couldn't get any worse, a hobgoblin (genetically augmented goblin) jumped out from the walls with a poochum (a dog), we were prepared to die fighting but these wounds and blood loss rendered me useless, not to mention all the mana I had to use to do that spell.

A quick turn of events, just as Shian was about to get killed, the hobgoblin defended him and slaughtered all the other monsters. I suddenly sense the same evil presence with Elena earlier, a shadow popped out of the ground right behind Edan, and right before I could even warn him, the hobgoblin took hold of the shadow and threw itself with the shadow off the cliff side.

Triana tended my wounds as we rest by a campfire Shian and Angelica put together, Shian got the firewood and of course Angelica being a sorceress and all, just lit the firewood in a flick of a finger. "She doesn't talk much does she?" I asked, "She does, she's just shy around strangers, just give her time." Shian answered defending, laughter followed. "I will release the next seal." Tristitia murmured, "Wait! Right now!?" I tried to ask him but he never answered. "No! Tristi-Agh!" the pain kicked in before I could even finish my sentence. This pain is like no other I've experienced and it was worse than the first seal being released. I fell down to the ground; they all came to me with devastated looks as I writhe in pain on the ground. "Yahiro! What's wrong!?" Shian exclaimed

"He's Hurting! Edan!" Angelica cried out

"I know!"

They were all panicking, and then Edan decided to cast sacred healing on me yet the effect only made the pain spike. "What the heck!?" they panicked once more. I wanted to die; I couldn't take this pain anymore. The pain was still here then a soft voice came from the forest in a song in elven language, it eased my pain little by little, "The song of new beginnings." Triana mumbled out. As they heard the song go through, they calmed down. Finally they remembered I was here and panicked again. The voice was soft and sweet until the last note; I closed my eyes and rested. They were still panicking until Triana whispered in a sweet soft voice "he's alright now." I was saved.

It was midnight when I woke up, surprised that my pain was gone. All of them were asleep until I noticed Angelica was gone, so I walked around searching for her and found her sitting by the edge of a cliff. "What are you doing up in this hour?" I asked her, and then she stood up with a worried look on her face, "what about you? Are you sure you should be walking around now?" She replied as she rushed to me to help, "I don't need help Angelica, I'm fine now, really." And so she calmed down and sat down at the edge of the cliff again. "Have you ever wondered what's out there?" she asked me, "To be honest I have been wondering, but I want to focus on Altera first… you can't sleep can you?" she stayed silent for a while, "Yeah… I'm tired of acting all mighty and rude to everyone, being a sorceress is giving me a hard time to find friends…"

"Are we not your friends?" I asked

"You're right you guys are my friends… and Edan…" a hint of red was on her cheeks.

I chuckled then she changed the subject. "The stars are so pretty tonight." She had said as she looked up in the sky. "Let's head back before the other's start searching for us and get any ideas, you don't want Edan to have any ideas now do you?" I said mockingly, she pouted and threw a rock at me, and so we went back on our way. When we got back to the campfire, Edan was there standing with his eyes closed, I somehow sense a dark presence from him. How did I not notice this earlier? He was a holy man but right now I can see his body is tainted with some kind of presence. I called his name out to confirm that it was him, but then the presence suddenly disappeared like it was suddenly sealed. When the presence had disappeared, he had fallen to the ground. I yelled out his name while I ran to him, waking Shian and Triana up and getting Angelica to run to the camp, "What happened!?" Angelica cried out as everyone came to Edan. All of us were panicking, "Heal him." Tristitia had said to me, and so I tried. I casted sacred healing upon him, however, something was not right, I feel like I did something else than heal him. As Edan started to breathe normally again, we all gave a sigh of relief. "Thank you." Tristitia told me, "Yahiro, what did you do?"

"Why do I feel light?"

"How come our soreness is gone?" they asked me,

"I… casted sacred healing." I replied.

"No, it was something else, the sensation we felt just now was not a part of sacred healing." Angelica protested.

"Well, anyway, at least we know that Edan's alright, let's go back and rest, we have more work tomorrow." And with that, Shian ended the conversation.

It was dawn when we had woken up and prepared to return to Ashen Ruins, Triana tried to help me up even though I refused to have her help me and as for Shian, he used his sword and made a crutch for me out of wood. I kept telling them I was fine but they told me not to act tough especially when my wounds might open again. "I keep telling you and telling you that I feel fine now, are you guys daft?" I told them seriously, "Okay then mister tough guy, why don't we test you out? Hand in hand combat, you and me." Shian provoked me, and I accepted. Even though they tried to stop us, there was no way I'm not backing down right after you try to pity me. We took our stances; Edan threw a coin up in the air. Time began to slow down as the coin was dropping. When the coin hit the ground, the test started. Shian and his cocky mind charged at me blindly, and as he came for me with a punch time was still slow and I was prepared. Quickly I dodged his punch, grabbed his arm and flipped him over. Even after I flipped him over he quickly recovered and started striking again and as for me I kept dodging. When I found an opening I took the chance and struck and hit this abdomen hard enough to make him slide back. "That was a strong shot, you have recovered. However, this still isn't over. Shian's movements became suddenly swift; I couldn't see any pattern in his movements. "Let's see if you really have recovered that fast." He announced as he disappeared in front of me. Suddenly I feel a punch hit my left arm, I thought the wound would have opened fortunately it didn't. He was targeting the spots where I was wounded. Hit after hit came, my right shoulder, left arm, my stomach, yet I still can't feel any wounds opening. They should've opened by now. "Shian stop!" Triana cried out, and so Shian stopped. "Remove your coat and your shirt if you would please." And so I did as she instructed. I removed my coat and shirt leaving only bandages covering my upper body. "What are you planning on doing Triana?" Angelica asked. "I don't know… but we're about to find out." Triana replied as she removed the bandages from my body. As soon as Triana removed the last set of bandages on me, they all had a shocked expression on their faces. "Your wounds… they're gone…" Triana had said as she backed away, "No scars, marks, or anything. No blood trails or even spots…"

"How can this happen?" Edan asked

"Your ability to recover is none like I've ever seen." Triana Added.

"It's a miracle from God…"

Morning had broken as we arrived at Ashen Ruins where Argenta lay under a tree. I saw a smirk at Argenta's face, but it disappeared when I found her staring at my left arm. "How did it go?" Argenta asked mockingly, "We got the orb, but in return Yahiro got badly wounded at the fight for it." Edan replied, "Yeah, I thought Elena stabbed him good and done for but this guy's tougher than we thought." "Triana patched him up, then he fell down in pain, it looked like he was agonizing, so now I think he was faking it." Shian and Angelica added. "But when we tried to help him earlier he refused our help, we tested him and he moved like he didn't even get stabbed. I took off his bandages and there was no wound nor scar nor trace of him being stabbed anywhere." Triana informed Argenta, "It's as if he's inhuman." Silence befell the scene. I looked at Argenta with a look saying not to tell them that I am inhuman, she understood. "Non-sense, I know a human when I see one. Now, what are you still doing here? Don't you have a purifier to take care of?" Argenta announced in a mocking tone, "We know, we're going! Let's go, come on Yahiro!" Shian exclaimed. We started walking away when Argenta pulled me aside, she felt my left arm as she whispered, "Idiot, don't get yourself killed." "I won't." she had me lean toward her and gave me a silvery kiss on the forehead, "Tristitia, don't die. _May you be blessed upon._" She had given me a good luck charm, "Thank you, Argenta." I parted ways with her and Joined Edan and the others.

We were on our way to Prayer's retreat. "How come you and Argenta are so close?" Shian asked me. I stayed silent looking for an answer; finally I found the right words to say, "She's… a friend, a childhood friend. Like Yuni." I lied, "Really? So she can actually have a soft spot too." Shian replied trying to hint something to Edan and Angelica, they all giggled and laughed. We finally arrive at the entrance, "Alright, let's make this quick and kill that Saslavan Guardian guy." Shian said enthusiastically, "Do you even know what we're up against?" I asked, "The town sorceress said that it was something called a manticore." Shian, Edan and Angelica answered. I stopped walking, "A manticore… and you guys just said it like we're going to be dealing with one small poochum." I tried to explain, "We're going to die if we go against a manticore." I added. "What's a manticore?" Shian asked, this time Triana raised her hand, we asked her what was wrong, "A manticore is a beast with the torso of a lion, a head of a goat, and the tail of a snake. It's as big as three houses combined. Is my description correct Yahiro?" She had asked me, I was shocked as we all stood silent, her description couldn't be any more accurate. Shian laughed and said "Don't be ridiculous Triana, I'm pretty sure your description is very—." "Accurate." I cut Shian off, "say that again please." Shian asked nervously, "I said her description couldn't be any more accurate." I replied. We all stayed frozen for a second, "It's okay, because I'm here, I'll take care of that thing in no time!" Shian exclaimed enthusiastically, and so we pressed on.

We ran into the temple not knowing the dangers that was upon us. Monsters were attacking us and a few flights of stairs came at us left and right. We heard some explosions coming from the upper flight, "It sounds like Camelia's here." Angelica informed us, "Who's Camelia?" I had asked,

"A nosy, but very strong kid." Shian answered

"Kid?"

"Yeah, but this I tell you, she can fight pretty well." Edan responded

"She?"

"Mhm, she has pretty neat stuff too." Angelica answered.

We ran to the next flight of stairs where the explosions were, and they weren't "kidding," this girl maybe young but she can fight. She had on garments I have never seen before in Altera, and she had some kind of cannon that she holds and she has this friend in a metal suit. Apparently, she had fended off these monsters for an hour even before we arrived.

We took a rest after we had just purged the room of monsters, yet how do these lot have no worry about what we are going to face after a few chambers? "Who's this?" Camelia had asked looking at me. "This is Yahiro, Argenta's… friend?" Shian answered very unsurely. "Argenta has a friend besides Geraint!?" She exclaimed. "Wait, who's Geraint?" Edan asked "Well, Geraint is Argenta's only sibling." She answered. Every one of us jumped out of surprise. I thought about it for a while, so if Argenta has a sibling and she's a dragon… so does that mean there's "Another dragon!?" I whispered and they all heard me and looked at me like I was out of my mind. "A dragon? You're crazy, everybody knows dragons are extinct." Camelia countered me with a slight laugh, "Yeah, don't mind me, I really just feel kind of off right now." I added then we all laughed. Camelia may be a kid, but she seems to believe history more than stories.

Resting was over, we started venturing again. As we stood up, Camelia signaled me to kneel down to her height, do you know about the dragons? About Geraint? And Sir Velskud? What about the _Monolith_?" she had whispered these questions upon my ear, she had me fooled. She does believe that dragons still exist. She had a very expecting on her face.

We had finally arrived at the last gate, however monsters were fiercer than ever, what's worse is a minotaur is the last guardian before the manticore. The minotaur struck Shian with its axe, luckily Shian blocked the attack with his sword. Edan summoned a lightning relic from the heavens, I see that he had chosen the path of a priest. I casted a binding spell on the minotaur so that it could not move, and as it struggled to break free Shian and the others struck the minotaur. The area was clear… or so we thought. "Shian! Time has come for you to meet your doom in the hands of yours truly! Landslide Krag!" an orc from a floor up exclaimed, the orc jumped down and lost his balance then struck a pose. "Ugh, when will you learn your lesson Krag?" Shian replied as he lunged on the orc with a stab and a slash. The orc was still breathing; only twitching, the orc didn't move. "I do hope you've learned your lesson from this Krag." Shian added. Now the area was surely clear.

Sweat was flowing down from our eyebrows, fear was shivering our bones. The manticore was nigh. The gate to the last chamber has opened and the relic in the middle of the platform had retracted to the ground. The pure white orb was reacting as soon as we walked in, however, no manticore was in sight. We were relieved, however it was way too early for us to have had a conclusion that the manticore wasn't there. As soon as Triana stepped in the platform, the gate closed shut behind her then a deafening roar came from all sides. I was scared even though they stood tall ready for anything; I really wished I was like them. Finally a flying monster roared from the heavens above us and dived down to meet us; a frightful sight. "Take the first strike." Tristitia had whispered me, and so I obeyed. I was the first one to strike. The manticore fired a series of poisonous spikes from its tail; however the spikes became too slow as if my reflexes sharpened. I grabbed onto one of its horns and climbed the manticore's head and got to strike a strong blow right before it shook me off of its head. Triana fired a shot and hit the manticore's left eye while Shian kept hitting its head; this was easier than we thought.

The unexpected happened. The manticore stood up on its two feet and slammed its two front paws on the platform creating a huge wave of rubble, dirt and wind. It was a blast so powerful that rubble wasn't the one that wounded me but the wind. It blew us away; I hit the wall, Triana's hanging on the edge of the platform, Shian stood fast with his sword pierced on the platform, Edan and Angelica formed a barrier protecting each other, while Camelia was protected by her companion of metal. As soon as I fell to the ground the manticore had lunged on me and pushed me onto the wall, squeezing my breath out of me. Angelica tried to help me out by casting a spell that rains boulders on the manticore; however, it only suffocated me more. I spurted blood out of my mouth, and I felt a bone crack or two, "Look the beast in the eye" Tristitia whispered, and so I did. As soon as I looked the manticore in the eye it loosened its grip then backed off. I noticed that it was somehow scared; I felt Tristitia's presence within me. I took control of this power as Edan and the others kept on the offensive against the beast. The manticore flew up and fired spikes of poison again and luckily we all dodged them. "Hark, tell them to go behind you then put your arm out and focus on making a barrier. The beast is going to plunge in to the platform." Tristitia had informed me, and so I followed his instructions, "Everyone! Get behind me! Now!" I exclaimed and they followed. I focused my mana on making a barrier however, I can't sense that I was making any progress, "What are you planning Yahiro!?" Shian asked me, I didn't answer; I just focused on making a barrier. Suddenly the winds have stopped, "Brave yourselves." I had said to them. Finally the manticore dived into the platform causing a big wave of rubble and wind again. At first I thought the barrier didn't work until I felt only a slight push of the wave. The wave passed and the manticore was distorted; we commenced the final strike.

Angelica casted raining boulders unto the manticore once more, Shian kept on hitting, and Triana kept of firing arrows. Edan was with me keeping up the enhancement spells; he enhances their aura and protection while I enhance their fighting power. What I don't get is that camellia is just sitting behind while her companion does all the fighting for her, as expected from a kid. I gave out a sigh. My whole body started to crumble, the broken bones the manticore had inflicted me with is starting to kick in. I fell to the ground, coughing up blood; blood ran through my mouth like a waterfall. I'm dying… "I'm going to release the next seal. It's the only way I can save you." Tristitia muttered. I closed my eyes when Edan and Camelia ran to help me, worried, that I might die in a split second. The pain kicked in, however it wasn't as bad as the other day but the sharpness of the pain was still there. "You will now have my mark, and it will be placed on your left eye." I opened my eyes and looked at Edan and Camelia then they stepped back with fright in their eyes. I was a monster. "W-what are you?" Edan asked me but all I gave was a sorrowful smile. A smile that recognizes that I will be discriminated, condemned, and judged. The manticore struck Shian and maid his sword land in front of me. I took up his sword from the ground. "Shian… I'm going to borrow this!" I yelled out to him.

I took up his sword and forced my mana into it. I lunged at the manticore and continually attacked it; each attacked stopped it from moving. While Edan and the others just watch me go wild, I had cut the manticore's wings off. The final blow; I climbed onto its head and plunged the sword to the nape of its neck and ran the sword from its neck through its torso. The battle was done, and we have won. As I was walking back towards them, Edan and the others shared the same expression. The expression of fear was upon their faces. As I neared them all of them took one step back except for Camelia. I tried to give Shian his sword back but he only stepped away. I was a monster to their eyes as well. I struck the sword to the ground and took the pure white orb to the purification device and did what had to be done. I looked at them still paralyzed, staring straight at me. I heard a very low cry from the manticore's body; I approached the corpse to see what had made that small cry. To my surprise, I had found a newborn manticore, small and innocent… and I had just stolen her of her mother. I picked her up and focused my mana on my legs getting ready to depart. "Wait!" Camelia called out, I looked at her with the best fake smile I could ever put up. I leapt into the forest toward Ashen ruins to talk with Argenta. From this day forth… I was no longer human.


	4. Chapter 4: Saint's Haven: Homecoming

_**Barren Cross Ch. 4  
>Saint's Haven: Homecoming<strong>_

CTC: Yahiro; Argenta; Sunrise; Xam; Jay; Lena; Nunally; Kyouko (mother); Tracy; other characters from the past chapter.

When I had arrived in Ashen ruins, I told Argenta that I can't face Edan and the others anymore and when she asked, I simply looked her in the eye. She then understood. The only reason my eyes are monstrous is because I have yet to control Tristitia's power fully. Now I understand how Argenta's eyes are still human-like even though she herself is a dragon. She had instructed me to journey back to Saint's Haven and search for man named Geraint; he will train me to fight using Tristitia's power. I will depart from Carderock pass with a new friend; I named him Sorrow because of the loss of his mother. Ironic, because I was the one who stole him of his mother; a baby manticore.

I had bought a new hooded cloak and a scarf to hide my outward appearances just in case I run into Edan and the others. I planned on venturing on to Saint's Haven in an old warship which got decommissioned as a transport airship; _The Albatross_. I sat beside the rails of the airship with Sorrow playing inside of my cloak, the little fur ball purred on my side. After a few hours the airship whirred to life. Suddenly Shian and the others boarded the airship, luckily my face was covered. Another group of men came aboard was the Royal Army commanded by Officer Clark, I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw how many wounded soldiers they brought in and most of them were dying. The crew of Albatross made haste and grabbed mops and rags to swab blood off the deck. The last 2 men finally boarded the ship, they were carrying a coffin, I could already see that most of them have died. Camelia looked at me with suspiciousness in her eyes then it disappeared as she started to approach me. I tried to keep Sorrow quiet in my cloak. "Hello, May I sit with you sir?" she had asked me with her metallic friend behind her, I couldn't speak or she could find out who I really was. I just patted the side where I wanted her to sit and so she sat down. She told me that she had made a friend and lost him in one day, and to be honest she had missed him, she told me this while hugging her legs. I felt sorry for her that I had left but what would the others have said? "We miss him…" she added. Then Sorrow suddenly flew out of my cloak, I tried to catch her, however I was too slow. He had already sat upon Camellia's knees. Camellia's metallic friend tried to grab Sorrow the Camellia stopped him. She smiled and said my name softly and tenderly, I quickly grabbed Sorrow back.

"Why do you insist in staying near me? Aren't you scared of me child?" I asked her

"I am scared, but you're still my friend right? You're still our friend, right?"

"Is that what they really say? That they miss me? I'm a monster and you know that…" I had replied to her question.

"… I miss you Yahiro, even if you are a monster."

"I guess I can't complain on that one child. Thanks… Camellia." Was the last thing that I had said. She then sat closer to me, I'm relieved that there's at least one person with me even if I've been turned into a dragon. There's something off about this child but I would rather not find that out.

We've departed from Carderock Pass and now on our way to Saint's haven. I had really missed Saint's Haven, I wonder if my parents are still there, worried about me, and Yuni, I wonder how she's faring. "So are you going to look for Geraint too?" She asked me. "You know Geraint?" I replied to her with a question. "Well… um, uh, Argenta! Yeah, she told us to look for him." She replied suspiciously, I laughed. I noticed the others coming our way so I hid Sorrow in my cloak again and had him quiet then hid my face a little bit more. Angelica offered Camelia to sit with Edan and the others, however Camelia had rejected her offer and had made Angelica pout. "Oh, hey, how are you faring?" Shian had greeted me and offered to shake my hand. I didn't want to refuse the offer but I can't risk the others knowing who I am, Camelia intervened and introduced me. "He's my friend, he's not really fond of strangers. Ahahaha…" Camelia had tried to cover for me. "Okay, I guess we'll just stay here until we get to know each other better. Sound fair?" Shian proposed to everyone and everyone agreed and sat beside me except for one person, Triana. "Why don't you sit down with us?" Edan asked Triana, yet she just shook her head. I hope she didn't figure out who I am.

Night has fallen and everyone aboard the airship was called to dinner, Edan asked me if I wanted to go with them and I had to reject by shaking my head. They had all went to the mess deck of the airship except for Camelia, I asked her why she didn't go with them to eat yet all she did was lean her head against my arm and said, "Being in a state of hunger with my friend is way better than seeing a friend hunger alone." Then she looked at me and smiled. Triana came up from the mess deck with a basket of food then suddenly hooks came flying and grabbed hold of the airship's railings. "Hark! Kobold Pirates are come aboard! Make haste to battle stations!" The watchman announced ringing a bell from the top of the airship's mainmast. This was bad since I did not possess a weapon. Quickly the Kobold pirates boarded the ship continuously. Camelia had pulled out her hand-held cannon as her metallic friend charged at the pirates on board and Triana dropped her basket as she pulls out her bow and arrow. The fight has begun, gunshots had been fired, swords were clashing and I was still unarmed, I had to do something. A pirate tried to attack me but failed, I took his sword away from him and used it as my own. I forced my mana in to the sword and began to fight the pirates off with Camelia and Triana fighting alongside me. I released a wave of mana to blow off some of the pirates. "What in blazes is going on here?!" Shian shouted as he arrived at the main deck. Camelia yelled at Shian saying to call the others for help and so Shian did as he was instructed. Compared to Triana and Camelia right now, Camelia's not even trying to fend the pirates off, and Triana's has quite a share of downed pirates already. I on the other hand, am cornered. "You're holding back, why?" Tristitia had asked me, "End it, now, for your sake and theirs." I gripped the sword with my right hand and focused magic on my left. I attacked the pirates, hacking and slashing, I was doing good for once, but in harsh truth I'm not. A pirate shot my left shoulder and I fell, and a stab followed quickly, if I were still a human I would already be dead by now. All that mana I gathered on my left hand, wasted and dissipated, is this really all I can do? Even with Tristitia's aid, I'm still rendered useless. "Don't give up, you've endured more pain than this!" Tristitia reminded me, and he was right. Shian and the others were trying to fight off the pirates even if they're already surrounded, I had to help. I stood up and stole a halberd from one of the wounded soldiers, I ran in to the pirates and swung the halberd just enough to decapitate three pirates at once. Triana aimed for me. I guess she had figured out who I was, and now she wants to kill the monster that I am. I closed my eyes just waiting for the arrow to pierce through me. I opened my eyes and just saw Triana nod at me. I look behind me and there lay a Kobold pirate with an arrow through its head. I laughed at myself for a second and continued to fight the pirates off.

The pirates were retreating as their numbers decreased dramatically, the clouds clear the sky and once again, blood is spilt on the ship's deck. We were all relieved when the pirates have left. We had no casualties, only two wounded, me and a soldier. There are many differences between that soldier and me, one is our cause, two is I can live forever and he can't, but the biggest difference that I could ever think about was that he was human… I'm not. My cloak was tattered from the fight but it's a good thing my face is still covered. Triana and the others gathered together talking about how much fun the fight had been while they walk towards my direction. Shian offered a handshake once again saying that I did a good job fending the pirates off. I still couldn't accept his handshake. This time Triana intervened by walking between Shian and me. "How did you survive that? A gunshot and a stab at the shoulder…" she had asked me, I couldn't answer, "More importantly, why did you leave?" She added to her question, I felt a tear fall down my eye as I stepped back. Silence… Edan and rest were confused about her questions, then Sorrow purred at my leg and as they saw her, their confused looks turned to me then turned into shock. I tried to take another step back however I was too slow. Triana held me in her arms, "Why did you leave us Yahiro?" she asked me the question again as a strong gust of wind blew my hood off and uncovered my face. Tears flowed down from my eyes as they all come to me and held me saying, "You silly goose, the group was sad when you left!" Shian had said

"Just because you're different doesn't mean we'll think of you as a monster"

"We're sorry if we hurt you with our stares and looks." They all apologized to me.

And all I could say was "I'm sorry." I had repeated saying that for a few times. I sat down with them talking about everything that happened when I had left, and that the town now calls them Carderock Saviors. Shian had asked me why my eyes appeared like a beast's when I had fought Saslavan. I lied to them by saying it was an ability that allows me to access and use the power of other beasts and people. I couldn't believe they played along with it, they even thought it was cool. They asked me if Argenta sent me to Saint's Haven to look for Geraint too, and I said yes. They offered for me to accompany them but like I had said to myself, I had my own path they had theirs, however my path cannot simply intertwine with theirs. Shian asked me why my path couldn't cross theirs, what was the reason. Then Triana intervened again, "He just can't Shian, I understand what he's saying but maybe you humans don't. Just like Elves, Humans have a telezia or in your language, a calling or destiny, he has his and we have ours, however, in his situation, he just simply cannot come with us." We all stared at her in awe. She asked us what was wrong, "That's the most you've ever spoken" Shian told her, "But anyway, I understand what you're talking about now." He added. We all fell silent for a while until I felt something hit my arm and when I looked, Camelia laid there asleep with her head resting on my arm and Sorrow resting on her arms. We all smiled.

Night had passed and dawn has come. They all still lay in a deep slumber as I prepare to depart, I left my rosary beside Edan with a letter of farewell. I had spotted Saint's Haven's walls when I was about to leap off the airship, then I suddenly felt a tug on my cloak and to my surprise it was Camelia. "So you're leaving without even a word of goodbye?" she asked me, and so I knelt down to her and held her saying, "I need to do what must be done, a monster like me has no place with you guys." I felt a tear roll down and wet my shoulder. I stood up and gave another look back, then I leapt out of the airship and into a forest, I need to see some things before I go look for this man named Geraint.

As I landed on the ground, I can't help but notice a gray goblin running away from orcs. The poor thing. I pursued the orcs and got their attention, with only magic on my hands I killed the orcs. It appeared like these orcs wanted to kill that poor thing. Three minutes later I just see this goblin running from orcs again, surely this goblin did something to tick these orcs off, but the question is what? So I decided to help out the goblin again and even after the orcs were already gone, the little gray goblin still kept running, I sighed then chuckled. I passed by a blonde swordsman that looked at me with a surprised expression, which I had not the slightest idea why so I just kept on walking. I finally arrived at a place I can perfectly remember. Port Hermalte. Me and Yuni used to play here a lot when we were kids, and only God knows how much I miss those days. I took a deep breath in, smelling the air from the sea and finally after a long period of time, I can finally say I'm back home. I tried calling Yuni out, I forgot. She wasn't with me anymore. I wonder how she's faring ring now. As I neared the fore gates of Saint's Haven's outer wall, I heard a scream came from an alley. I ran to see what had caused it, as it turns out, a man was being attacked by a succubus. I casted a purifying spell and the succubus left. The man that was attacked was a guard on his break then that's when the succubus attacked him. He let me in through the gates vouching for me that I had saved his life. Not much has changed since the siege, only trees grew and houses anew.

First thing I wanted to do was to see if my home was still standing, and surprisingly, it still was. I went up the steps and knocked on the door, a tear fell from my eye when I saw the person whom had opened the door. When she realized who I was she covered her mouth with her hands and tears flowed down from her face. She put out one hand and felt my face, I held her in my arms weeping. "Mother, it's been a long time." I had said to her, "I'm home."

"Welcome home my child, my little boy." She said to me as she looked me in the eye, "Look how much you've grown. You're taller than me now."

"Where's father? Is he faring well?" I had to ask.

Her facial expression suddenly changed from overflowing joy to overwhelming sorrow. She held me even tighter than before as she cried onto me. Five years ago, Mother and Father had been defending Saint's Haven from the cultists; father had died during the siege when a dragon cultist blew up a wall and fell on father and led to his bitter demise. When the wall fell on him he was still breathing, but he only had much time left. Mother slew the surrounding dragon cultists and went to father to hear his last words. By the break of morning, mother and I went to visit my father's grave and offered my respects. "Here lay Tristan of Saint's Haven. Beloved husband of Kyouko of the Furukawa clan and beloved father of Yahiro and Yuni. He defended Saint's Haven with is full might, and in doing so lost his life. He is now with God the Almighty. May the Grace of God be upon his Family." These were the words etched on to his tombstone. I felt anguish and devastation as I read the passage, only God knows how much hatred and pain I have in my heart right at this moment. "The king's men never came until the last second, the only help that we received was from the Astral Coven Sorceresses." Mother had explained to me. I stood silent for a while, then I spoke.

"It's been five years, and now… I've already lost two important people in my life."

"Wait two people? Speaking of which, where's Yuni?" she asked me in a raised tone. After a second of silence her expression turned into terror.

"Mother, be at ease. She is faring well alongside the Astral Coven."

"I'm glad, for a second I thought Yuni had joined your father."

I held my mother in my arms and whispered that I was scared when she went to the Astral Coven. Then she just held me tighter then soon let me go. We sat down at the grave for a while talking about how me and Yuni fared this past five years, when she noticed Sorrow trying to play with me, she grabbed her and tickled her belly. She asked me what her name was and I told her Sorrow, then she asked me why did I name her that and so I told her the story. She kept slapping my arm and pouted like a child after I finished, although I didn't mention to her anything about Sorrow being a manticore or how I killed her mother or about Tristitia. I think it's best to not say it to her for now. "Say mother, did you know about Yuni's birthmark at the nape of her neck?" I had asked her, and she kept quiet for a while until she found the right answer to give me. The "Mark of The Grand Arcane" then she explained what it was and what it meant. "I have to sho— introduce you to someone." My mother had said as she led me back to the house.

She pulled something from a chest in the attic, something covered in cloth and dust. "This is Lilith." She had said as she gave the object to me; I unraveled the object and found that it was a sword. "She was your father's guardian and weapon, in his final moments he wanted me to give this to you when the time comes that I see you again." I pulled the sword out from its sheath and examined it closely. Every edge, etch, stone and mark was perfectly aligned and symmetrical. While I was the Divine Order, they taught us that Lilith was once an angel that served God on Verathea as a peer or watch over the ancients, but she got caught in their wars and Lilith never got to return to the heavens because one of her wings got torn off. Poor thing. "Say mother, are you not scared of me?" I had asked.

"Scared? Why would I be scared of my own child?" she asked me as she messed my hair up.

"So it doesn't bother you that I look like a monster?"

"Why are you calling yourself a monster? You're no monster. Did something happen in these five years that you would like to tell me?" she asked me with a depressed look on her face.

"Wait… could it be that… mother do you have a mirror?"

She then nodded and showed me to a mirror. Gold brown eyes and no sign of marks on my left eye, I looked like I was back to normal even though is still feel the presence of the power Tristitia had bestowed me. I held my mother in my arms, and kept whispering, "I'm glad, I'm glad." She just held me and didn't bother to ask again what happened to me. The front door opened so I came to see who it was, I was surprised to see a little girl come in as she was surprised to see me. She then shifted to a joyous expression as she ran and tackled me. When mother came in the room she smiled at both of us, as it turns out, this girl lost her parents during the raid and mother took her in as if she was her own. I now have a little sister. Her name was Nunally. She had been playing with some other kids in the neighborhood after I had just arrived in Saint's Haven, she kept clinging on to me like glue and mother said it was cute. She kind of is cute, soft silver hair and red eyes and a smile that can bring up anybody's day. We laughed. I asked Nunally about her age so she stood up and began counting by fingers, it was so cute that I couldn't help but pinch her cheeks. She's 12 years of age and I am 17 years of age. I asked mother how old she was and surprisingly she was only thirty-four years of age, and she looks as if she's at the age of 20 years.

After a while Nunally decided to go outside and play with Russell in the town's storage. My mother sat down petting sorrow on her lap still not knowing that Sorrow was a manticore, someone was knocking at the door. A familiar face came to visit. "Lady Lena, to what honor do we owe your visit?" I had greeted her as I bowed to humble myself. "It seems that the story of your return from one of the guards is true, who would've known after five years you would still be alive. So I wanted to see if it were true." She lied, "You have something to tell me, considering you've only brought your maid with you with no guards and that your white dress had been recently stained in red. Should we talk about this matter in a different place?" I had asked her. Wait… did I just? "You indeed have changed, however, how did you know about all this stuff?" she asked me as she gave me a suspicious look. Then I apologized to her and told her that even I do not have an answer. I bowed to her again and she smiled. "Follow me to the castle." She had instructed me, and immediately, I followed.

I have never once thought to be lucky enough to set foot inside the Royal Castle. "Have you ever heard of the Dragon cult?" she asked me as she sat down at the balcony and yes I have heard of them and I told her that they killed my father. "I guess we have one thing in common about this matter. You see, I have a job for you." She said to me then I chuckled.

"And what makes you think I'd do it Lady Lena?" I asked

"Because it's not your choice, and besides I think you'll have fun spying on dragon cultists. Maid, get us some tea please and that outfit I had made." She had said. I looked around, lost at the enormous size of the room. She offered me to sit down as the maid served us tea so fragrant that I couldn't resist. According to her sources, an ogre has been spotted in the river ruins just outside the town, Gunther our town guildsman had posted commissions concerning the ogre and a lot of adventurers took the commission, however, but all of them never returned, she thinks the dragon cult is involved. If the dragon cultists are involved, she wants me to bring one of them as a prisoner to interrogate. I asked her if there's anything else and she said yes. She wanted me to wear damn white garments even a mask! I told her the deal's off if I have to wear that. To think that she thought I would look cute in garments like those, and cute isn't exactly me. It took me a while before I got her to understand that white wasn't my color and for a second I thought she wouldn't be able to comprehend. Then she pouted and made a jellyfish face, I laughed. She had the maid put the garments up, and that's when a small boy wearing a crown came in. Lady Lena bowed down to him and I don't know why, this child looked familiar. Lady Lena tugged on me, "What are you doing?! Bow down, he's the king!" she said to me and immediately I bowed out of panic, "Rise" the king had said then he ran to Lady Lena and hugged her crying. The Royal Court had been fighting again about "The Prophet" I have not heard about. To think that this child needs to take care of such businesses at such a young age, so he runs to Lena for the comfort of a mother. I feel sorry for the child. Lady Lena introduced me to the king, King Cassius III. The king asked me of a favor but he insists of calling it an order. The order was to rid the river ruins of the dragon cultists because his father was killed by the dragon cult. Of course, I could not refuse.

I went back home to fetch Lilith and Sorrow. As I opened the door Nunally had been knitting while Sorrow and Mother watched silently by the side. Mother welcomed me back with a hug and a kiss at the cheek while Nunally quickly ran upstairs and hid her knitting tools. I asked mother why she did that and she just told me that it was a secret. So I told mother that I got a job from Lady Lena and I just came to fetch Sorrow and Lilith. She understood and swiftly brought Lilith and a bag of Lunch to me. I also told her I'm taking an Adventurer's League commission, that's when she asked me where I was going. When I told her I was going to river ruins her face grew sad, I told her I'll be back before sunset just to stop her from worrying. Gladly she stopped, she told me to lean forward then she kissed my forehead and said "May you be blessed upon." It was an old good luck charm that she used to give me five years ago. Oh how times have passed.

When I visited Gunther in the Adventurer's League headquarters, he was tearing off all the commissions about the ogre at River Ruins. I asked him why he was tearing those off, and he told me so much of his people have died because of this commission and he doesn't want any others to die too. I told him I'll take the commission, that's when he held me by the collar and told me that it was suicide to go in there alone. I told him Lady Lena told me to finish the job then he let go. "Three adventurers just took the commission and are heading to the south gate as we speak." He had said to me and gave me the commission paper, "If you really can do it. Don't let those adventurers die."

As I was nearing the gate to Port Hermalte, the three adventurers were looking for one more person to join their group to hunt down the ogre. One of them was an elf that looked very familiar somehow, I know we've met before but where? And when? After a while of waiting, they finally got bored and decided to just go on a three-man hunting party while I followed closely behind. Just outside the gates lay Port Hermalte, a place full of memories, a place which I could remember from the back of my head. They stopped and seemed to notice me. "Yahiro?" a familiar voice called to me. I looked back and saw Edan and the others waving to me as they approached. I smiled at them and asked them how they were faring and where they were going; they asked me likewise. One comment I was so happy to receive was "Hey your eyes are back to normal." The comment came from Shian, they asked me if I was in a party with the three people I was following and I said no. as the three pressed on further, I had to say my farewell to them again and continued to follow the lot of adventurers.

As they went in farther into the ruins, I stayed very close behind, following. So far they've been doing fine fending the monsters off, and so far no sight of an ogre anywhere… or so I thought. A portal opened from one of the gates and the ogre had come out of it, and just like what Lady Lena expected, dragon cultists were involved. Two dragon cultists were right behind the ogre. The boy with the sword took the first strike, not at the ogre but at the dragon cultists. However the ogre was under their control and had defended themselves with it, the elf shot an arrow at one of the dragon cultists and luckily hit him and died. "Damned luck!" the swordsman boy said to the elf and the elf smirked. The third person, a paladin was directly attacking the ogre but had not even scratched it.

I noticed something off about the dragon cultist, as if it lost control of something, then it clicked to me. The ogre WAS out of control. The ogre went on a rampage hitting everything that came in his way and sight, even the dragon cultist. With the dragon cultist out cold, the ogre attacked the adventurers. The swordsman boy tried to stop it with brute force and the paladin took up his shield and kept on hitting the ogre with a flail while the elf tries to aim for the ogre's heart. "You need to save them." Tristitia said to me, I asked him what he was talking about because in my point of view, they were doing fine. He told me the ogre will leap smash its club to the ground creating a powerful shockwave. Devastatingly enough, everything he said was true. The ogre had caused a huge wave of rubble and wind. The three adventurers flew quite a distance, and without hesitation, I had unsheathed Lilith and began an assault of the ogre. The swordsman lay out cold while the paladin and the elf lay on the ground in pain. I tried to make it as quick as possible however, this ogre had moved faster than I had thought, I found an opening and took the liberty of putting it to my advantage. Quickly I hacked the ogre's throat making blood spray everywhere. "Gruesome, but good job." Tristitia had complimented me. I was wet with blood, so much blood that it kept on dripping from my coat. I approached the dragon cultist and bound him in light. As I looked back, the elf girl was staring at me with glistening eyes. Quickly I rushed to them and casted sacred healing. The Paladin groaned and the swordsman boy was still unconscious, yet the elf girl was still staring at me with complete and utter confusion. I offered her a hand to stand up asking if she was alright, she nodded in reply as she took my hand. When I helped her stand up, I saw the pain in her face as she fell back down on her back. I checked her feet and it appeared that she had sprained her ankle.

I took the elf girl and carried her by my back while the Paladin carried the swordsman over his shoulder since he said he was feeling well enough to carry the boy along. As we neared the gates, the guardsman ran to us to help however when he saw how bloody of a mess I am, he rushed in and called for help as well. The healers and clerics took the elf girl and the swordsman out of our hands. The paladin took me to the side and thanked me with a bag full of silver, I tried to refuse but he just insisted and so I left with a little bit of money in my pocket. As I neared the castle I ran into General Douglas, Lena's Stepfather. He asked me "What in Verathea happened to you!?" of course I told him what happened and that I needed to see Lady Lena. He suddenly had an angry expression on his face he asked me what was my business with her and I told him just a favor she asked me to do. I don't know if he warned me or threatened me when he said "If you as much lay a hand on my beautiful daughter's face, I will have you executed." I sighed. When I got to the castle gate a guardsman named Joey halted me then asked me "What in Verathea happened to you!?" I also told him what happened and went on to Lady Lena's maid and she asked me the same thing, then she led me to Lady Lena's chamber. As always she was still sitting by the balcony while sipping tea. When she looked in my direction she asked the same thing the General and Joey asked me. "What in Verathea happened to you!?" She had me sit down and have some tea. I told her every bit of everything that happened in the ruins then her face grew grim. "Where's the dragon cultist now?" she had asked me, then I remembered I had left the cultist alone in the ruins. She slapped me at the back to the head with a fan for forgetting. So she sent me back again to retrieve this dragon cultist.

I arrived back at the ruins exactly at midday where I had left the dragon cultist, and miraculously, he was still there and so I took the liberty of taking him in the city. "You're not thinking that you can pass the gates with that thing dressed like that did you?" Tristitia had warned me, and to be fairly honest, yes I did. When I took his mask off his face was surprisingly feminine, and when I took her garments off, it wasn't only his face that was feminine, it was her whole body. Tristitia and me both had the same reaction. "I—it's a girl…" I felt guilty of taking her garments off and putting my coat over her, but, it needed to be done. When I passed the gates, the guards kept on eyeing me suspiciously, it was embarrassing. I went home to get this girl proper clothing before we go to the castle when she wakes up, and to my surprise again Lady Lena was in the house sipping tea with my mother. My mother looked at me with a flustered expression on her face, having a half-naked girl over my shoulder would be surprising. "So where's the dragon cultist?" Lady Lena had asked, and so I told her that she was looking at her. A shadow grew on my mother's face as she stood up and went to the kitchen, Lady Lena told me to stop her as she sipped her tea. I couldn't understand her at first but when my mother came out of the kitchen with a knife on her hands it all became clear. "It's because of people like her is why Tristan died!" she exclaimed furiously as she ran to kill the girl. I tossed the girl at the chair right beside me and got in the way of my mother.

Blood was once again tainting my garments with a knife stabbing my body, it was a good thing I wasn't human anymore or I would have died. Both Lady Lena and my mother shared the same shocked expression, my mother let go of the knife and backed away with the expression of someone who had just murdered with tears falling from her eyes. I pulled the knife out of my body but the pain was still intense. A familiar voice at the door called to me and said "How nice, your first day in Saint's Haven and you already have yourself stabbed." I turned around, and indeed it was Argenta. "Oh and don't worry, with you looking like that your blood is no harm to anyone." She had said to me as she came inside and slapped me at the back of the head. Lady Lena asked Argenta who she was but all she said was it's none of her business, then Argenta turned to me and asked me if I was done bleeding yet, so I took my shirt off to check. I wasn't bleeding anymore. Argenta told me to go to Black Mountain Path tomorrow then she left. My mother was still on her knees crying while looking at me as I approached her, I held her as tight as I could and calmed her down and told her that everything was going to be alright. "I have never seen anybody heal a wound that fast… nor any human." Lady Lena had said to me as she eyed me doubting me, I looked at her nervously then she followed her sentence up with two words that relieved my anxiety. "Just kidding."

When my mother had calmed down, Lady Lena was just about to leave, she gave me instructions to dress formally then take her to her room once she wakes up. I took the girl to my chamber and laid her down on my bed then I went downstairs to see how my mother was doing. She was just sitting there with a blank expression as she was petting Sorrow while continually saying sorry. I asked mother what she wanted for supper, then she stood up and carrying Sorrow on her arms and told me she was coming along. I'm glad she feels much better now. We went to the general store to get the stuff we want for supper and the first thing we see is Nunally helping the storekeeper arrange merchandise for sale, I actually thought it was cute. The storekeeper's name was Kelly, and she seems to know my mother quite well, then I remembered that I used to pick on her when we were kids because she always got in a conflict with Yuni. Kelly asked mother is I was another one of her "Suitors." It was a joke between her and mother, then after my mother introduced me properly, Kelly ran behind the counter and hid continually saying "Please don't hurt me!" Me and mother laughed and told her that I wasn't going to do anything bad to her, then I tried teasing her by adding the words "For now" at the end of my sentence so mother slapped me at the back of my head.

Kelly is a nice person and I still don't get why she never got along with Yuni. I do have to admit that she's grown since the last time I saw her, however her behavior still hasn't changed. We took Nunally with us on the way back home, and as we walked, she told us stories about how her day went and everything that she did today. As I opened the door, weeping was heard. The weeping could only come from one person, the dragon cultist. I had mother and Nunally just put everything by the kitchen as I went to my room to check on her. I opened my door and indeed she was the one weeping, she looked lost, moreover, clueless of everything around her. I greeted her as I would greet a friend, but then she ticked me off with a response that was too convincing. "Where am I?" she asked "Do you know who I am?" she added to her question. I believed that she was trying to trick me in to making me think that she had lost her memory, so I pulled out Lilith and told her to stop pretending to not know anything and to introduce herself properly otherwise I would put Lilith through her leg, yet she kept the same response, she even added another question. "Who are you?" just when I was about to stab her leg, I saw her face shift to being extremely terrified by me then Tristitia stopped me. He told me that she was telling the truth. I lowered Lilith down and apologized. Now I definitely feel like a total arse.

I borrowed some of mother's clothes and surprisingly mother's clothes fit the girl perfectly. We went downstairs and informed mother that she had lost her memory, even though mother didn't want to believe it, she had to since the girl doesn't even know her name nor where she came from. I released her from her bonds and she therefore thanked me, even though she was a powerful dragon cultist being able to control an ogre, she still looks lost as she sat down by the kitchen table. We decided to call her Tracy. Mother announced that supper won't be ready for a while so she told me to change my garments since I was covered with blood. Mother said she had some clothes for me in her chamber, so I went and fetched it. Nunally and Sorrow were following me as I opened the door to mother's chamber. When I picked up the garments mother had been talking about, I broke into tears. "Your clothes from five years ago won't fit you anymore but that should." Mother had said to me. I had taken the garments and wore them in my room. Mother was right, it did fit me perfectly. I now hold another piece of father with me. I planned on taking Tracy to the Royal Castle since we still had a lot of time before supper, and thankfully mother's clothing had always been formal. I told mother that we would go to see Lady Lena now, so she examined our attire once more to see if anything was out of place. After she had finished examining us she told me to lean down to her height then she gave me a kiss on my forehead, "May you be blessed upon." It's a good luck charm back in my childhood, the last time someone had given me that charm was back in Ashen ruins in Carederock pass from Argenta. When we had reached the Castle, Tracy stood there in awe of the enormous structure. The maid came to fetch us and led us to Lena's room, and in her room Tracy fell over in awe of the brightness of the white colors, it was convenient that I was beside her that I caught her before she even hit the floor. Lady Lena laughed at her for her state of being right now.

I explained everything to Lady Lena, and while I was explaining to her, a grim expression crossed Lady Lena's face. She had invited us for supper but we had to refuse considering that mother was already cooking for us. On our way out of the castle, Tracy tugged on my coat and asked if we could walk around before sundown and of course I agreed. I took her to Port Hermalte having the intuition that she has a lot of questions going on her mind. When we entered the port, we went to the beach east of the port and sat at a comfortable spot, and just as I suspected she had some questions. "Say Yahiro, why am I in this timeline?" she asked me.

"What do you mean by this timeline?" I asked her back

"My memories are completely vague but I can remember some stuff that happened. These buildings, these ports are so old to me… it's like I'm from another world with gigantic white birds soaring through the sky with people in them, yet, why can't I remember who I am?"

"This I tell you. The past is not always pleasant. Sometimes forgetting is a merciful gift from God." I had replied to her question. She stayed silent for a while, I pointed to the setting sun, "Beautiful, isn't it?"

"Yeah… I hope I don't forget this moment… ever."

When we had returned home, the most irritating in my mind came to a realization. Lady Lena was sitting at the dining table with mother and Nunally, mother welcomed us back then I asked her why Lady Lena is here. Apparently Lady Lena didn't want to dine in the castle alone tonight so she decided to visit me instead. Of course knowing mother, she probably made too much for supper so in case an unexpected guest drops by, that guest could dine with us and so the guest of honor right now is Lady Lena. Tracy humbled herself by offering to help serving the food, surprisingly mother agreed to her proposal to help.

Supper ended with laughs and stories. Lady Lena, Mother and Nunally were curious about my travels for the past five years and decided to ask me the whole five year story, so I told them how Yuni and I faired for the last five years excluding the dragon incident. While Tracy was just finishing up cleaning the dining room, I had to go with Lady Lena to escort her to the Royal Castle. I brought Lilith and Sorrow with me and in the way to the castle; we came across a drunken lot of people who seemed to have an interest in the Lady. Not only were they all armed, they also had a large number, I didn't know what to do if they all attacked me at once. I had Lilith on the ready as one of the drunken men approached us. When they all knelt down, my mind just crashed in the misunderstanding I had. They greeted Lady Lena as they would address a noble and a friend. As it turns out, Lady Lena actually knew these men for they had owed her a very huge favor that they could not speak of. Lady Lena took us to the Castle walls for some reason then she pulled a slab of rock from the wall and made a hole that led straight to her room.

On my way back home, the group of men we encountered earlier invited me for a drink. One drink wasn't too bad, then the tavern we were in had a drinking contest, there I saw the three adventurers that I helped out this morning join. After the first three rounds, the swordsman boy was out cold, the elf girl was tipsy, and the Paladin was still surprisingly standing. I was enticed to joining the contest as well. They changed the drink from rum to something the bartender called "Everclear," he said he invented the drink. Five men and two women on the round table with everclear, the bartender gave us the signal to drink and so we drank. Two ment already knocked out after the first serve, I too almost fell, but luckily enough I was still standing. Second serve came in, one man and one woman fell, only one woman left and two men. The next serve came in, this time they served us rum with everclear. The paladin fell. Competition was tough, only me and the elf are left. The bartender gave us three cups each, our choices were everclear, water, and rum. It was a quick draw, you had to pick a cup without smelling or seeing what's inside, basically, I needed luck. When the bartender gave us the signal, we both rushed for the cup in the middle of our cups and drank from it. I got everclear while the elf was drinking her cup very gently… I fell to the ground still having consciousness, I laughed then the people had me and the elf stand up, cheering. They asked us for our names, the elf introduced herself as Sunrise and I introduced myself as "Yahiro, son of Tristan." One of the people pulled me aside and told me that he had known my father and fought with him in the battlefield back then, he gave me a letter after having a couple of drinks and a conversation, I was drunk so I didn't give a damn then so I put the letter in my pocket and continued drinking with the paladin and the elf. The night was young, but tonight was the night when I upset my mother.

By the break of dawn, I had woken up from my slumber still at the tavern. I found two letters on my hand, one from the three adventurers I met and one from a guild called _Adobo_. I pocketed both letters and tried to walk home, and when I reached the steps to our door, mother came out and grabbed my ear then pulled me in the house and gave me quite a scolding. Nunally was just there by the side laughing at how mother used her words on me. This day is going to be a long day.


	5. Chapter 5: The Two Dragons

_**Barren Cross Ch.V**_

_**Saint's Haven: Geraint the gold & Argenta the silver**_

After my mother had given me a scolding, she held me in her arms saying that she doesn't know what she would do if she had to lose me too. I felt so sorry and promised her that I would never get drunk again. She made me drink water and prepared a bath for me when she smelled the alcohol on my clothing, Nunally also needed a bath so mother had me watch over her in the bathing room. So I took Nunally and our bathing necessities and had her in the tub, she splashed some water on me while I still had my garments then I remembered I had letters in my coat. I went back to the changing room and put away my garments with the letters. Upon opening the doors back to the bathing room, a flying small tub hit me in the face.

That was the most horrible bath I had ever had in my life. I went North of town to go to black mountain path with Sorrow following me slightly behind, I usually wear my coat, scarf and boots but mother had me remove those and had me wear a regular civilian attire which she got from Dean and sandals from Russell. On my way to the Black Mountain path, I stopped by Kelly's store and bought an apple to snack on. Of course she was still scared of me, at least for the wrong reason so I'm kind of glad. When I arrived at the path, Argenta was standing underneath a tree with two other companions. One of her companions was a kid that couldn't just shut his mouth, so annoying that I wanted to kill him, and the other was the blonde swordsman I passed by yesterday. Geraint.

I was so glad the annoying kid wasn't Geraint or else I would've destroyed the Royal Castle by now. Ugh, what am I saying! Geraint and Argenta asked me where my weapon was, and I told them "I thought I wasn't going to need it so I left it at home." Argenta punched me on the back of the head while Geraint hid his face with his palm while shaking his head in my idiocy. I told them I could still fight without a weapon then this annoying creature of an idiot steps in and says that's it's impossible for me to fight without a weapon in my shape and that I was just trying to show off for Argenta. I agree with him with my figure part, but showing off to Argenta is just going too far. This kid's arrogant as hell! He told me that he would put me in my place. Even though Argenta had already warned him he still pulled out his sword at me. This kid kept blabbering about if I quit now that he might just let me live. I was so annoyed. When he charged at me, he reminded me of a goblin somewhere. I kept on dodging perfectly since his blows were so slow I could see where each and every strike will come from, after a couple of dodging, I slipped behind him and knocked on his noggin. Argenta told me to make it quick and end it already, and so this kid mistakes that Argenta said it to him and managed to laugh. He mocked me saying that all I could do is run away and dodge his strikes and that I was a coward and insulted my father of being a coward too. He crossed the line; I'm going to kill this little brat. I focused as hard as I can; I felt the heat of the aura I was emitting. I closed my eyes for a second and opened them up; I stared straight at this brat and saw his expression change from arrogant to extremely terrified. I asked him to kindly repeat what he had just said about my father, I could hear his rapid breathing and rapid heartbeats. He was so scared to the point where he snapped and tried to attack me saying "How dare you look down on me!?" he was too slow. I kicked his sword up and followed it with a roundhouse kick that made him fly and slam his back all the way to the tree and when his sword landed on the ground, I picked it up and walked closer to him. Argenta said it was enough that her slave was unconscious then Geraint contradicted her saying, "Come on Argenta, we both know that he's just pretending to be unconscious. I want to see how this numbskull will go." And stopped Argenta from stopping me. Like he said, I could still hear his rapid heartbeats, so I picked him up from the collar with my free hand and stabbed his shirt onto the tree and left him to hang there. I felt my aura dissipate as I calmed down, I heard Geraint whisper to me saying that I did the right thing while Argenta just pouted.

Argenta and Geraint took me to the base of Black Mountain and just left that kid David hanging on the tree. They brought me here to train, at least that's what they said. Old town folktales said that there was a very powerful orc that lived in these parts of the mountain, now it's time to see if the folktales were true. Geraint killed a skeleton and gave me its halberd as a weapon. As we were walking Geraint told me to look around and pay attention to my surroundings then close my eyes and listen. At first I was confused and didn't sense anything, but then I started seeing lights in the darkness, small lights, bright lights, and even lights of different colours. I saw Geraint's light, it was as a big blazing golden flame while Argenta had a silver flame. Something was wrong. Geraint and Argenta's flames suddenly disappeared as a huge crimson light drew near. The second I opened my eyes, an orc was running toward me ready to attack. I looked around for Geraint and Argenta however, no matter how hard I looked, they were nowhere to be found. I braced myself, for this was a test. A suicide test.

After all those folktales the elders used to tell us and the fear I had in me, I came to a realization that this orc was a wimp. With a single hack, I decapitated the poor thing. I closed my eyes once more and sensed a huge number of red lights coming from the west. I took a stand and fought through them all, until my halberd broke. I was surrounded, I had no choice but to use divine magic. I took one of the orc's mace and forced a large amount of my mana into it. Unexpectedly I forced too much mana into the mace and the rest of the mana formed a blade of energy sparking electricity, this gave me an easier advantage to killing these monsters. After fighting those hordes of monsters, I jumped over a cliff and found Argenta sitting down comfortably while sipping tea congratulating me for killing the feared orc of Black Mountain. No matter how I ranted at her for leaving me alone down there, all she could do was laugh.

After forcing me to fight a couple hordes of monsters, Argenta decides to send me to survey Marissa's Dry-spring. She said she needed some sort of crystal from Marissa's hut, and so like a poochum, I immediately followed her instructions. It was cold in that cursed place, I had to kill a few undead monsters just to find nothing. I returned to Black Mountain Path only to find that annoying brat David once again. Even after what had happened earlier, he still hasn't learned his lesson and so he challenged me to a fight saying "You're lucky I ate hallucinating mushrooms earlier so you caught me off-guard with your illusions." I got fed up. I focused my energy once more and closed my eyes for one second and opened it the next and looked at David straight into his eyes and accepted his challenge. Once again he was as white as the snow in Mana Ridge… wait… I've never been to Mana Ridge yet I see every detail of it in my memories. "You may have never been to Mana Ridge, but I have." Tristitia answered, then I laughed. As I approached David, he fell to his knees and begged for his life. I laughed maniacally. "Why should I?" I had asked him as he struggled to look for an answer.

"I-I'm still young and I'm scared to die!"

"And? Actually now that I think about it, Geraint or Argenta isn't here to save your little arse."

"I'm sorry! Please! I'll do anything!"

"Pathetic, I don't even want to eat you. Not only do you not deserve to live, you're also too pathetic to even deserve to die, in other words, you don't even deserve to exist." I said to him as I calmed down and turned away from him. A sharp pain pierced through my stomach, when I had looked down, David's sword had pierced through me. "That's for being too cocky." He said to me. Suddenly Argenta arrived from Black Mountain and ran to me. She pushed David away. Even with a blade in my body, David still went on bragging about how he beat me fair and square. Argenta ignored him and asked me how many times I've been stabbed and I replied "four times" with my voice still sounding clear, she panicked and pulled the sword out of me and threw it to the ground. She told me that I definitely need to replenish my strength at its fullest now, but then Tristitia interfered and told me to tell Argenta that there were three seals left and so I followed his instructions. Argenta then nodded and put my arm over her shoulders and had me stand up, then suddenly, Tristitia told me that he was going to release the next seal. I stood there and waited for it… the pain kicked in and I fell to the ground, Argenta not knowing what was going on panicked and held my hand while David stood there and said "Just leave him to die." Something was tearing my back. I was in so much pain that I felt tears of blood flow down from my eyes, Argenta rolled me over to see what was happening, then she calmed down and gripped my hand tightly. Finally, something from my back suddenly ripped open, flapping… I felt it… the pain ended with Argenta smiling at me saying "Congratulations, you're no longer completely human. You now have your wings." I passed out.

I woke up several hours later in a cave only to find Sorrow to be the one to keep me company. I noticed that sorrow had a collar with a piece of paper strapped onto it saying.

"Meet me in Port Hermalte after you're done being out cold, and hurry up! I only have three days to be teaching you.

Your Friend,  
>Geraint."<p>

Since when did he become my friend? Then I remembered from Tristitia's memory that Geraint and Tristitia spent most of their time a hundred years ago, then after forty-three years Velskud met Geraint and Tristitia left for a duty he had to do. Man these guys are old. "Are you kidding me? A thousand years is still young, why not try two thousand on for size?" Tristitia tried to tease me. "Which reminds me… where did my wings go?" I asked Tristitia as I tried to look for them on my back. He told me that my wings will only appear if I focus hard enough and want to fly quite a long distance. So basically I can keep my wings hidden.

Before I went to Port Hermalte, I dropped by the house to grab more appropriate clothing for training and Lilith, and to my surprise, two sorceresses were there chatting with mother while having some tea. Mother looked at me and smiled as I walked closer, then one of the sorceresses stood up and ran to me and held me as tight as she could. Yuni. The other sorceress with her was her instructor, she was amazed at how Yuni could cast any spell at her will and only at her third day so she took her to Saint's Haven in order to further her training. I had no problem with that, but I am not used to seeing Yuni dressed like this, I mean, how indecent could sorceresses even get nowadays? Since her instructor needs to talk with Lady Kaylinn, Yuni's going to be sticking with me for a good while. Just like the old days.

As me and Yuni walk into Port Hermalte, She kept talking about what happened in the past few days. Her training, the sorrow between every rude remark sorceresses gave her, and the fun she spent with a few other sorceresses-in-training. Of course she didn't let me slide so she had me tell her every bit of what happened to me, and after I finished telling her, she had a very sad expression. Naturally I told her not to worry so much about it, but her expression never changed. She rued asking me about what happened. Geraint waved to me when we had reached the port, he asked me who the girl beside me was and so I introduced her, he kept a bored expression until I mentioned that she bears the mark of the Grand Arcane. He then turned to Yuni and told her that Kasarana would be very pleased to meet her, I asked him if Yuni could come along with us and surprisingly he said yes, however I was to be responsible for her and protect her at my own risk and that she needs to keep up with my movements. We sailed to an island that was desolate. A thick mist covered the island, the monsters were strong, and to my surprise, I never thought that I would ever see these Kobold pirates again. "I can only teach you to fight better in this form, as for magic, I can't help you because only you can develop the magic of which you use." Geraint had said to me and quickly I understood, "I'll be waiting for you at the other island." He added, then he burst his wings out and flew there. Yuni asked me who or what Geraint exactly is and so I told her everything that I know and that right now he is my mentor.

A few minutes after we killed the pirates, Argenta flew in with a stuffed bag. When she told me I needed to eat, I never expected that she would even make the effort of bringing food to me. "I'm pretty sure you haven't eaten yet and that you don't know what you're supposed to eat so I brought you these." She had told me then she opened the bag which was full of jewels, diamonds, and meat from monsters. I understood the meat from the monsters part but not the jewels and diamonds. Yuni asked her the question of what were the jewels and diamonds for, and Argenta replied by taking a piece of diamond and ate it right in front of us. I never knew I could eat jewels. Argenta asked why Yuni was already out of training and Yuni explained. After all that Argenta just left without even a word of goodbye. I wanted to try out eating a jewel so I took a purple jewel and ate it, surprisingly enough it was very delicious and refreshing. Yuni just watched me from the side as I devoured everything inside the bag then I saved a couple of diamonds later in case I needed it. We began venturing again.

As we were walking around, I felt the presences of monsters lingering around. I took Lilith out of her sheath, Yuni went close to a flower and smelled it, I tried to pull her aside but I was too late. The spitflower popped up from the ground and tried to swallow Yuni. I tried to open the spitflower's mouth but it wasn't big enough of a gap for her to move, so I tried to look for a spot where I can cut the spitflower without harming Yuni in the process. Suddenly the spitflower was emitting so much heat that I felt like I was going to burn. After a few seconds, the spitflower burned to crisp ashes. Yuni laid down flat on her back pouting about how disgusting the experience that she just had. I laughed and asked her if she was okay then she pointed a ball of fire at me and asked me if I wanted to go next, I told her to calm down with sweat flowing down from my face. She then stood up and flicked my forehead then we began walking again.

We reached a cave full of these spitflowers, without hesitation, Yuni burned them down to the ground. We took a little break inside the cave. We sat down and had some laughs, then she leaned forward and looked me in the eye with curiousness in which I didn't understand why. "Since when have your eyes been red?" she had asked me and I was surprised so I asked her what she was talking about. She took some water and froze it to make a mirror and showed it to me. My eyes were red, blood-red like the other day but this time Tristitia's Mark was nowhere to be seen. "I released the next seal, that one is painless. Changes in your body are going to start to appear, eyes, hair, fangs and most of all, emotions." Tristitia had told me. "What's it going to do with my emotions? I asked him "You'll find out soon, I know that you may think that it is going to be a huge loss, but it will be to your advantage." I didn't bother to ask anymore. After our short little break and the conversation with Tristitia, it was silent. We just kept pressing on through the monsters without making an utter sound coming from neither my lips nor hers. The thought of what's going to happen to me lingered through my mind, my emotions… we encountered a cliff at the end of the island with a lot of vegetation. Another spike of presences came to my senses; it's like all the plants around us were moving. Unfortunately, I was right.

An overgrowth of spitflowers popped up from the ground and began to attack us, huge annoying plants that I just want to burn is craving for me and Yuni's flesh and bone. Yuni was having a hard time killing them while I disintegrate each and every one of them. It took me ten minutes to finish them all off, it was a big pain in the arse. Having to free Yuni from their vines I mean. At the end of the island we found a boat already prepared for us. Geraint was waiting for us in the other island, I thought to myself that I could just leap off to the next island but I didn't want to leave Yuni behind so we had to take the boat. I sat her at the back of the boat so that she could just relax while I row.

While we were half-way to the next island when something suddenly rocked the boat, I stopped rowing and pulled Lilith out of her sheath while Yuni sat there worried, Frightened rather. Slimy arms that looked like the tails of snakes with cups underneath its arms. The boat was rocky so I asked Yuni to freeze the water surrounding the boat so it wouldn't rock so much and so she did. The boat was very less rocky. I cut all the slimy arms down, however they keep on growing back. I got sick of it. I told Yuni that I would be right back and dived into the water, I found a gigantic squid in the water, I tried to stab the creature's eyes but it released a lot of black smoke-like substances and got me lost. I felt something slimy grab hold of my neck and limbs, before I knew it, I was pushed out of the water; suspended in air. Yuni threw a fireball at the tentacle that had my right arm and my right arm was free. I broke completely free when I had slashed the other three arms and landed back in the water. I closed my eyes and saw the light of the squid's life; quickly I swam to its direction and successfully stabbed its eye. I ran my blade from the eye through its whole head. I killed it. I surfaced and climbed back on the boat, however, because of that fight, the boat was damaged and was sinking. I took Yuni in my arms and leapt to the next island. She got so scared that she cried and grabbed onto me for a few minutes even if we were already on land. I sensed a great force in the next area. Geraint was coming to say something.

I had my sword out and so did Geraint. In the blink of an eye, Geraint was right in front of me and he swung his sword at me, naturally, I defended myself by blocking his sword with mine. I pushed him away with all my strength and he flew out. He told me to focus and fight him, I was confused. I focused my mana on my left hand accumulating sparks of lightning on my whole entire left arm. I ran toward Geraint and he ran toward me, we clashed swords and magic. Yuni was confused and threw a fireball at Geraint, but Geraint deflected the fireball towards me. I got hit. I forced some of my mana on Lilith to cast a spell. Geraint attacked me once again and when our swords clashed, I quickly grabbed his arm and flipped him. I saw a glimpse of a surprised look on his face but it suddenly turned into a smile. Before he even fell to the ground, he turned his whole body and me with him. I fell to the ground with Geraint standing over me with the tip of his sword at my throat. I'm going to die I thought to myself. Then he took his sword away and sheathed it then offered me a hand to stand up. "You fight like an old friend of mine back before the dragon raid." He said to me, I never even knew he had a friend other than Argenta.

Quickly after the fight, Argenta arrived and gave us the news that the Black Dragon is about to return. So we rushed back to Black Mountain, Geraint asked me to scout around with him in the Black Sovereign Domain while he ordered Shian and the others to head straight to the Black Sovereign stronghold. Geraint and I swept through the domain quickly and decided to help Shian and the others in the strong hold. Unfortunately, we were too late. A huge wave of energy blew at our direction, it blew away the soldiers who were about to invade the stronghold. "Has the Black Dragon revived?" Geraint mumbled to himself, then told me to tend the soldiers who got injured from the blast as Geraint charged into the Stronghold. Most of these soldiers were already injured even before they got here. I commend their bravery, however it was also stupid. I saw Shian and the others pass by on their way to Saint's Haven, I didn't even get to say hello to them. After I was done, I returned to Black Mountain Path and found Argenta. She told me to rest for battle, and so I did. I went home and once again Lady Lena visited my mother. I sat at the table with them and opened a letter that was from a group called Cold Snap. The letter was an invitation to a part and it was before sunset today. It didn't say anything if I should dress formally so I wiped down my cloak and went without Yuni. On my way there I opened the other letter which came from the three other adventurers I ran into. It also contained an invitation, but this one invited me to come together tomorrow at the beach.

I entered the café that where they held the party and was surprised at how calm and collected it was inside. A girl about my age came up to me and welcomed me to the Cold Snap guild café. I showed her the invitation and a shadow grew one her face as she read it in a serious manner then switched back to her "happy go lucky" expression and led me to a room on the second floor. A man who calls himself "JM" was waiting for me, he had me sit down at a chair as we had a little chat. He suddenly changed the subject and cut to the chase. He had the girl lock the door and windows, I was on high alert. "Be at ease child." He said to me. He showed me a picture of him and my parents. I asked him how he knew my parents, so he told me of all the mischief and the stupid things him and father did together. At the night when I took part of that drinking competition inside that one tavern, he took advantage of my drunkenness and talked to me about my father. After he had confirmed I was my father's son he gave me the invitation to this party. Now he wants me to join Cold Snap as an "Owl." I was intrigued so I took up his offer. He gave me gear for the guild, a concealable blade, a uniform and a mask. I was confused so I asked him what "Owls" do and was shocked by the answer. "Bounty Hunters." He told me that I could choose a nickname to be called. As a beginner, he instructed the girl to accompany me in every commission we do. I was excited yet also felt deceived, I thought that this guild simply worked as a café. As for an initiation, I was assigned on an S-Class commission and that commission was to take Lady Lena's necklace. I could've refused but being an "Owl" caught me by surprise. The only problem about this commission was that I had to do it in broad daylight.

I didn't know if my plan was to be a success, but I had to try. I had the girl following me closely behind acting as an escort of such. I was walking toward the castle gate then she pulled me back and asked me what I was thinking. "It's fine, trust me." I told her. I walked up toward Joey and told him that I had business with Lady Lena so he let us in. the girl was surprised when he just let me pass without suspicion at all. The maid led us to Lady Lena's room and as always, Lady Lena was cheery as possible. The girl couldn't believe that Lady Lena was standing right in front of her as Lady Lena greeted me as a friend would.

Lena had us sit down with her at the balcony. It was cool, the breeze was just right and the sun was bright. I began the small talk and actually started a conversation which took a bunch of wrong turns. I then complimented her on her necklace and she didn't seem to care for it. I asked her if she valued the necklace and she said no. I was surprised, and asked her how she couldn't cherish such a necklace. So she shocked me with another answer, "I have dozens of these necklaces, to be honest I gave one each to your mother and sisters." She told me, so I cut to the chase and asked her if I could have one for a friend and the girl with me and she gladly gave them to us. I tied the necklace around the girl and she became flustered. Lady Lena asked me who she was and I introduced her as my assistant. So we started another conversation as I pocketed the other necklace she gave me. Another thing she surprised us with was her awareness of _Cold Snap_.

"I've been to that café before." She told us, "I recognized the mark on her arm. I usually go there and look at the dragon cultist commissions on the second floor."

"How do you know about that" The girl with me jolted up as she asked.

"Whoops, it would seem that I had said too much." Was the only reply Lady Lena had mustered, she asked the girl another surprising question, "So are you a 'Dog' or an 'Owl'? Or maybe both?"

The girl was shocked and didn't know how to respond. Then Lady Lena directed her attention to me. I swallowed my own saliva out of fear. She knew more of the guild than I did. She warned us that our conversation should never leave the room. Afraid of what might happen and knowing the consequences, we agreed to her. And right before we left, she surprised me and my companion once more. "They usually sneak through the castle in order to pass the test, but you simply walked in my front door. I'm obliged." All along she knew that I came for the necklace, and she played with us the whole time. I stood up and bowed my head in apology for trying to deceive her, and all she did was smile.

She sent us off with a letter for the guild master. The girl with me still couldn't believe everything that happened right in front of her eyes. "I still don't know your name yet…" I had told her. It took her a moment in order to respond. Then with a soft embarrassed tone, she introduced herself as "Chicky." She was flustered; embarrassed by her nickname. So I patted her on the head in order to relieve her of embarrassment, the side effect was painful. She punched me in the stomach and pouted at me as we went back to the guild and in the end, she requested to be separated from me in the guild operations. I didn't know if she wanted to separate from me out of hate or for another reason.

JM gave me a patch for the sleeve of my uniform. That looked like a silver "S" or a "Z" or a lightning bolt with a slash in the middle part of it. He assigned me to a squad with Chicky, him and another person. Tonight was my first real mission. The commission came from Lady Lena herself, an assassination. A noble who's acquainted with a dragon cultist was leaving by ship on Port Hermalte to escape court martial. The Lady wanted us to carry out the execution of every dragon cultist present in the ship. We've been warned that the noble hired three innocent people to protect him. I lost the sense of caring if I was going to have to kill people. I went to the restroom and looked in a mirror and saw the differences in the length and colour of my hair. Lines of red appeared on the edges of my hair every time light shone on it. I can start seeing the changes Tristitia had been talking about.

I went back home and mother held my shoulders and closely examined my eyes then held me in her arms. She told me that I was slowly taking "his" appearance. I asked her who this man was and she had me sit down with her and talked about something I did not expect. On the day I was born, mother and father were traveling to Saint's Haven from some place in the orient. Mother went into labour on the way there and I was born into the world however, I was week, and frail. I've been silent for three hours. My mother had been praying to God to not take me away so quickly, and that's when "he" came in. A very wounded man in a black cloak was passing by when he had seen my mother and father weeping. He offered a way to save me, but there was a price. As I grow up, I will fail to resemble neither mother nor father, I would take up the man's image and everything that was set before him. Neither me nor "him" had much time left in the world so he casted a final spell. Wings sprouted from his back and a pillar of dark light blasted through the heavens, then a little ball of dark light entered my body and fused with me. After a few seconds, I began to cry. "His" presence was still in the air and whispered to my parents your son shall become a part of Altera's history as its saviour as well as its destroyer. I am Tristitia, heed my words, for this boy is a gift from God." Then his presence faded. My mother was grateful to Tristitia for saving my life.

I asked mother if she could sew the emblem JM gave me onto my uniform. As soon as I gave her the uniform and emblem, she had recognized them and seemed to hesitate to say yes. She told me to accompany her in her chamber. She gave me a box from their wardrobe and instructed me to open it, and so I did. I was surprised by the contents inside. It contained the same painting JM had showed me earlier. "So I'm guessing he's still alive in that old place?" mother had asked me and told her everything about my encounter with JM and the guild. In return, mother told me the same stories JM had told me about. Only then did I know that the name "Owls" came from them.

Our chat about the fun things that they have done in the guild ended when mother finished sewing the emblem on and asked me the question lingering in her mind. "Who are you killing tonight?" she asked me and I answered her honestly.

"Are you sure about this? Getting blood on your hands?" she asked me another question with traces of sorrow in both her expression and voice.

"I already have…" I replied with my head facing the ground, "I decided to take the commission for a cause, a righteous cause…"

"You sound just like me when I joined that guild with your father in a commission."

We both laughed then she handed me the uniform. She asked me for the concealable sword and mask JM gave me and examined them. Since I didn't know how the sword worked, I asked mother if she could help me with it. With a push of a button, a blade emerged from what had seemed like the handle. And with another push of a button, she concealed it in to a handle small enough to fit in pockets. She knew so much of how to operate these things that I was amazed; she even showed me a hidden hood from inside the coat. Lastly she gave me an advice that she considered most important, "Always keep your mask and hood on at all times." Those words rang in my ear, and the conversation went into a deeper turn. "Mother… have you ever assassinated some—" she had cut me off and said yes. "It was when I was two years younger than you. The reason why I met your father in my homeland… Yorokobi."

"I was fifteen years of age when my homeland underwent a civil war. I served with my family and the revolutionists while Tristan was one of the King's knights as they were having peace talks with our emperor, in which the revolutionists were against. We didn't want the people from the west to enter our land, so our last hope of preventing that was to destroy the peace talks. The way we wanted the peace talks to end was to assassinate not our own emperor but the King, but they were too strong. Half of my clan was wiped out by a single knight. It was him. Once I clashed swords with him, our strength were equally balanced. When too many casualties had been inflicted in my clan, we had no choice but to retreat. By the end of that day, the Furukawa clan was decimated to a quarter.

In order to redeem my family's honour in that defeat, they sent me to go and spy on the royal family. By God's grace, Tristan and I clashed swords once again. Even though he had only cut me a few times, the stings of the cuts were too much that tears began to roll down my eyes as we battled. At that time he asked me a question in his language that I couldn't understand. I felt mocked, and caught me off guard. He was fast. He quickly got in front of me with his blade on my throat. He removed my mask and seemed surprised of what he had found underneath. He leapt back and took a few steps so I took the opportunity to run away.

A day later, we learned that the King from the west left temporarily so it got a bit calmer. However I was walking around town to run an errand for my father, and that's when I met Tristan once more. I tried my best not to be noticed and failed. His eyes and mine met the he chased after me. After he had caught up, he suddenly introduced himself in our language. I was surprised, I didn't expect that someone would have the ability to learn an entire language in a single day. After I had also introduced myself, I then quickly turned away. But before I could have left, he asked me if I would like to join him for tea. In that era, refusing an offer like that would mean complete and utter disrespect to the person offering it. It was my father's fault for teaching me not to be disrespectful no matter whom it may be. That day, I was really glad I did.

He took me to a tea house in the middle of town. This was a bad situation for myself for some of the people in my clan usually spend their time there. He talked to me so casually and friendly that I was enticed by him, and for once in my life I was actually having fun. I was having fun with him yet I was also depressed. Depressed of the fact that this may never happen again. Father didn't suspect anything when I returned home, I simply gave him the sword he had sent me to retrieve for him and dismissed me.

The next day was also a tranquil day with no turmoil in sight. I wandered in the town again somehow hoping that I would see Tristan again, but I didn't know why. I even went out of my way to check if he was in the tea house, but he wasn't there. I became melancholic. But God has a way with playing with fate. I bumped into him when I was leaving the tea house. I was surprised, and also happy.

Now that I've spouted all this nonsense and got off track of what you have asked me, I'll go back and cut to the chase. I killed the King's wife on the night of King Cassius III's birth. Since I had killed all her servants, she begged me for a last wish to help her at least help the child be born. As soon as she gave birth, I let her touch her child and spend her last minutes with him. Once the time was up, I took the baby and laid it down on a cradle. After that, she accepted my blade with a smile. I regretted that day. It haunted me when I was having you."

I couldn't believe how my mother went through what she went through. I had a lot of questions in my mind like, "how was she not arrested?" but either way, I'm pleased that she is well and alive. I held my mother in my arms and kissed her forehead. "May you be blessed upon." I gave her the good luck charm she always gave me when I was little and left. I went to the Black Mountain Path to check if Argenta had a task in hand for me, however she told me that she already sent out her slaves to do the work for her. So I took the liberty of roaming around Port Hermalte. There I found the three adventurers again heading for the ruins, and after I caught up with them I had offered them my assistance. Of course they gladly accepted.

A very thick mist covered the ruins so I cautioned them not to drift afar as we went through. The fog kept on getting denser and denser that I could barely make anything with the visibility. Suddenly I saw eyes beyond the fog, glowing eyes. The Elf released an arrow at one of the eyes in the fog and hit a monster. We were in the middle of an ambush. I took Lilith out of her sheath and the fight began. I stayed as calm as possible in dealing with the monsters attacking us until I realized I wasn't even trying to be calm anymore. Everything seemed like a flow of movements. I killed the monsters one by one alongside the adventurers without fail.

We kept on pressing forward through the hordes we kept on facing. Everything felt so easy for me until we reached the end of the ruins. Two lamias came from the river and attacked us. I miraculously managed to fend off every strike of one of the lamias while the other lamia was occupied by the three adventurers. I focused my mana to strike. The tables turned when I broke two of the lamia's swords and began to strike back. I leapt and grabbed the lamia's head. I sent a large shock of lightning through the hand I was grabbing its head and electrocuted it. At the same time, the three other adventurers had killed the other lamia as well.

They took five scales from the two lamias as proof of them killing the lamias. I went with them to turn in their commissions that required them to hunt down the lamias. The only problem was that the commissioner doubted them because he thought there had only been one lamia. Even if I had vouched for them, the commissioner still wouldn't have any of it.

In the end I got the commissioner to give them their reward. We wandered around town as they thanked me and introduced themselves. Jay was a free paladin, Xam was a swordsman since he was thirteen years of age, and then there's Sunrise or as we just call her Sun an elf who specializes in her bow and arrow. The three of them have been together for two weeks already and they seem to get along pretty well.

Coincidentally we ended up at the Cold Snap café and spent the afternoon there. Unfortunately Xam had to leave suddenly because of a family matter, which was understandable since he was only fifteen years of age. Jay, Sun and I had small talk and humorous conversations, however all I could do was smile at their jokes and tomfoolery. I wanted to laugh but was unable to. Soon I realized that the changes Tristitia had been talking about were already taking place. I was losing my urge to express my emotions. A few minutes after the conversations, Jay had taken his leave leaving me and Sun alone. We sat there with an awkward silence. She asked me if I could help her with another commission in Marissa's dry spring. I couldn't leave her alone to do it so I decided that I would give her aid.

We found a huge crystal at the entrance of the dry spring. I chipped it to a hundred prices and put some in my pouch while I ate the rest. She looked so clueless while I ate the crystals right in front of her. As we were passing through, I was emitting a faint aura so that the undead monsters would not dare to approach us. "What is your commission supposed to be about?" I asked her. "I need to find Marissa's corpse or grave and purify it with this" she answered as she pulled out a vial of powerful Holy water. I could see that the blessing could have only come from the archbishop or the pontiff, however the pontiff has been missing for about forty years now. A mist suddenly formed around us, a mist like the one at the river ruins. I already knew my aura wasn't sufficient to keep the monsters away so I took Lilith out and threw the crystals that I was eating away. Something was coming.

I heard footsteps, a dozen of them slowly approaching. I took Sun and ran for it. I was getting anxious. I kept hearing the footsteps getting closer but as we ran, we couldn't see a thing. Neither monsters nor humans. We ran farther and farther on our way to Marissa's hut. "Fret not, for the footsteps you hear are from Marissa's hut. It seems that you have company there." Tristitia informed me. Yet I still couldn't believe that my hearing was amplified to that extent. I was an idiot. I remembered the time when I had Yuni with me on the boat. "all you have to do is get to Marissa's hut correct?" I asked her as we were running and she replied "yes." Quickly I stopped running. "Pardon me." I told her as I carried her in my arms. "Grab hold of me tightly." I warned her then I leapt to Marissa's hut.

She had the same reaction as Yuni earlier. She held on even after we landed with her eyes closed shut out of fear. I let her down to ease her mind and she immediately settled down. As we neared Marissa's hut, we heard fighting taking place. Shian and the others were fighting off Marissa's restless spirit, however I felt something that wasn't right. I sensed a presence very alike to Marissa's spirit. Sun and I went ahead and helped them out as that other presence still lingers. A few moments later, the presence decided to reveal itself. At first I didn't want to believe my own eyes but it was already right in front of me, another Marissa had appeared. They were already having struggles fighting one Marissa, I couldn't imagine them being able to battle two. I needed to think. "Purify the grave." Tristitia whispered to me. I took action my taking Sun to Marissa's grave and told her to purify it. So she instantly sprinkled the Holy water on the grave. The fog was dissipating and so did the other Marissa. Because of the purification, Marissa's spirit weakened instantaneously so Edan and the others quickly ended their clash. Marissa was finally sent to rest.

Shian and the others expressed their gratitude to me and Sun and gave us gold coins as a token of appreciation. I asked them what they were doing in a place like this and they all told me the same thing. "Argenta sent us to collect crystals necessary in order for us to infiltrate the Black Dragon nest." Now I understood. I remember talking to Argenta about nests, and based on what I've learned these crystals should be the catalysts to enter his nest. I wondered who the dragon was. I helped them collect crystals with Sun who had been awfully quiet. I looked at her as she tried to chip some of the crystals away with her arrows. A few seconds later, she unintentionally cut her hand with the crystal. I examined the cut and it wasn't anything critical. I casted a healing spell on her hand. She smiled at me as I was healing her hand. I had the urge to latch my eyes into hers, but my eyes averted and looked back at her hand. She giggled. She thanked me as soon as her wound completely healed. I stood up and went back to the crystal I was collecting. In my mind was the thought of her soft warm hand which had captivated me.

After collecting sufficient crystals, we went back to Black Mountain Path and gave the crystals to Argenta. She had a surprised expression when she saw me and Sun arrive with Edan and the others. After we gave her the crystals, Edan and the others ran in Saint's Haven to report to the castle. Argenta turned to me and asked me who I've been "frickle-frackling" with and looked at Sun. Sun tried to be polite and introduced herself to Argenta. I could see it in Sun's face that she was nervous. I then turned to Argenta and asked her if she was planning on eating the crystals to tease her so she gave me an annoyed look. After she had finished the first three catalysts, she gave me two and one to Sun. "I want you, Yuni, and this elf to guard our rear." She told me as she gave me the catalysts, "we attack at daybreak tomorrow. Now leave me and get yourselves some rest." I looked at Sun and her confusion and told her that we had to leave. She followed me to the café and had me explain almost everything to her. I informed her that we would have to cancel our trip to the beach and that I would pay her as if tomorrow's campaign was to be a commission. Surprisingly she agreed at a very fair price and made me promise one thing. "Make sure we don't die tomorrow." She smiled at me as she added "that's an order." As if she were to be a queen, so I played along. I knelt down and bowed my head with my arm across my chest and said, "As you wish my queen." We looked at each other eye to eye and laughed.

I escorted her to her house after we had some tea while still playing the role of a knight and his queen. I reminded her about our little skirmish tomorrow, and she told me that she wouldn't forget. She smiled at me as I was walking away, waving her farewell. I told myself that I would never forget that smile, however I was wrong. All the excitement and happiness I felt this day, was soon forgotten.

I arrived back at the café to prepare for tonight's encounter. We all wore different masks, and surprisingly a red haired man appearing to be the same age as me seemed to be helping as well. Another unexpected surprise is that another person was joining us. "This is the guild master, Rhyllai" JM introduced him to us. "But I thought you were the guild master." I said to JM then Rhyllai grabbed me by my collar. "Well apparently I'm the guild master, is that clear noob?" Rhyllai told me and so I just bowed my head. I took my concealable blade which they gave me and made a quick examination. So far everything was fine. All we needed to do was wait. The more the time had passed, the more my emotions faded. I couldn't feel happy anymore when they were saying jokes while we sat around. Someone even asked me why I was boring. I tried to smile as hard as I could, but I couldn't. All I could do was fringe the tip of one side of my lips.

Midnight finally arrived. Our masks hid our faces as we snuck our way to the ship where the noble was. I took the liberty of entering the ship via water while the rest of us snuck their way through the front of the ship. I put the guards to sleep one by one with the man in white following me closely behind. We reached the lower deck where the noble's room was kept. So far I've killed no one. "Do we really have to kill him? Wouldn't it be better to have him cooperate with us to find the dragon cultist?" I asked the man in white. I got two answers from him, "Yes and no." I pulled out my concealable sword and opened it. I opened the door and found the room with two guards pointing their muskets at me with the noble and a girl. They fired the shots and I received them. I charged in and sliced their muskets into pieces, and killed the two guards.

I swung the sword in the air to clean the blade, but when I neared the noble the man in white pushed me aside and pulled out a white rose that turned into a blade. I could see the terror in the eyes of the noble as well as the girl. "Any last words Count Byron?" the man asked the noble. "A request… please spare my sister, make sure she escapes the cult safely… I beg of you." The noble looked us all in the eyes to which the man in white agreed to keep his sister safe. The noble kissed his sister's forehead. "May you be blessed upon." Those were the noble's last words. The man in white then beheaded the noble without a hint of remorse. Then the noble's sister went into shock from what she had just witnessed and began to scream. Sorrow filled my mind. I felt the grief and despair of the girl. I involuntarily approached the girl and knelt down to her as I placed my forehead on hers, then all of her past hurts flowed into me and I began to weep. "Think of different past for her." Tristitia whispered to me and so I did. Right after I parted my forehead from hers, she fainted. I felt bad for the girl. She looked like she was in the same age as Nunnaly.

As soon as we finished the job, everyone had gone home. The man in white suggested that I leave the girl with Irene however I thought that leaving her with the Church would be much better. So I took her to the Church and gave them some gold for an offering. Before I went home, I knelt down in front of the altar and prayed to God for forgiveness of every sin I had committed. I went home and found myself restless. Tracy slept on my bed while I sat down in the corner of my chamber, thinking of what I had just done. I wept. Wondering if I could persevere through nights like these. I cried myself to sleep hoping that that sorrow would disappear.

It was still dark when I had woken up so I went outside for a brief moment. After refreshing myself, I went back inside to awaken Yuni and prepare her for us to depart. I informed her of one more person that will be joining us in the skirmish. I knocked on the door but there was no answer. So I looked for around and saw an open window and decided to go through it to look. Yuni waited outside as I intruded. It was a stupid move for I almost got killed. I was unaware that Sun had already been awake and didn't recognize me. So she had her bow stretched and an arrow pointed at me. She released the arrow. Coming into realization, she panicked. The arrow pierced my left shoulder. I pulled it out and told her it was time to depart. She apologized to me and neared me to look at the wound, but I told her I was fine. The sweet aroma of roses was still with her.

We ran to the Black Mountain Path and met with Argenta and the others with haste. They surprised us by bringing two hundred foot soldiers from the king were with them. Geraint, Shian, Edan, and the others led the charge, the soldiers were in the middle with Argenta, and then there's me, Sun, and Yuni thwarting any monster that followed to attack us from behind. Our combination was perfect. Yuni provided protection with her ice spells, Sun providing an eye on my back as I fought through the monsters. An impregnable defence.

An hour had passed and we finally reached the main domain of the Black Dragon. Me, Yuni, and Sun were still in the rear. Then a moment of amazement struck us all. "Argenta! Take command!" Geraint exclaimed as he burst out his wings and transformed into the Gold Dragon. Argenta commanded the troops to attack while she strives to retrieve the so-called prophet. As the two dragons clashed, Argenta came out of the stronghold with the prophet. The black dragon's wing was torn off while it inflicted a fatal blow on the gold dragon's eyesight. Argenta told me to go to the castle basement as she handed me the prophet and ran to Geraint as he fell from the sky. As much as I wanted to help, all I could do was follow orders. After all the books I've read about the gold dragon and the silver dragon, I finally got to see them in action.


	6. Chapter 6: Into A New World

_**Author's note:**_ Sorry for not being able to update steadily, have a lot of school stuff… anyway I'm going to end this fanfic in Chapter 12 and convert it into a book and hopefully get a publisher. Hope you guys are doing fine. And once again, I do not own the game, I only own some characters of this fanfic. Stay tuned for chapter 7 hopefully I'll make up for the late updates. Teehee~

-Tristi

_**Barren Cross Ch. 6  
>Into Another World<strong>_

Shortly after we arrived at the castle basement, Geraint and Argenta came in. I gave the prophet to Sun and helped Geraint walk up to the center of the basement. He instructed me to bring the prophet to the center then he plunged his sword to the ground. The sword emitted a ray of light as well as the presence of a strong barrier surrounding us like the one which the Black dragon had made. In other words, Geraint made the basement into his own nest.

Geraint sat down and told me to lean into him as he whispered to my ears saying, "You have already seen what we do. Now you have the freedom to choose whether to help us secure the peace of this world from dragons, or to go out in the world and seek your own calling from God. Now is the time to choose my friend." I didn't know what to do, I felt like he was saying goodbye so I asked him what he would do. His reply to my question never left my heart, "If I were to be you my friend, I would go and find my own path. Not a path laid out for me." He then smiled at me and said "it looks like you have already made your choice. I will miss the times we spent together, but before you go I want you to have this." He gave me a scroll, "when my time has come, Argenta will come for this. Keep it safe. Now go." I held his hand one last time and left as Shian and the others walked in. I wept.

I tucked the scroll in my coat as we arrived at the beach. Jay and Xam were waiting by a hut. They waved at us as soon as they saw us coming; I tried to fake a smile but failed as I waved back. Jay was the most playful paladin I have ever met. He grabbed a ball and threw it to me with all of his might, and I got hit. I sat by the hut blocking the sun from my face while the others play around in the water.

Yuni sat beside me, shoulder to shoulder. I buried my face in my arms as I hugged my legs. She gave me a hug and stroked my head. "If you need a shoulder to cry on, I'm here." The thought of my friend nearing his end, blind, and the words spoken to me broke me into tears. Not long after, Sun and the others noticed me and Yuni from shore. They came at me with questions like "are you okay?" "Is something wrong?" "Do you need anything?" they were so humble and nice to me. They did everything they could in their ability to stop me from weeping. Then finally they succeeded by making me laugh so hard inside that I felt a smile crack on my face. "That's the only time I've seen you smile since yesterday." Yuni told me as she smiled at me. I shook my head, wiped my tears away, and gave out a smile that was difficult to produce.

By the end of the day, Jay's skin was bright red. Every time we touched him, he would let out a loud scream indicating his pain. We all teased him from time to time by pushing each other toward him until all of us had to go our separate ways. Such joy and time, definitely I would not forget these. I walked Yuni home first then accompanied sun to hers, but Sun had other plans. Sun wanted to go have a drink so I complied with her wish. Within an hour, she got herself drunk. I carried her to her home on my back with the smell of alcohol, sea water, and blood covering her. But there was one more scent that she held. The fragrance of lilies and freesias could be smelled from her. I turned around to catch her from almost falling; she fell asleep. I then carried her on my arms the rest of the way. And when we arrived at her home, an elf boy with the same skin tone as sun was inside her home. "What are you doing with my sister?" the boy asked. I told him what happened and lead me to her room where I laid her down on her bed. She whispered two words that upset me a little. "Dragon Cultists" she whispered.

I arrived at home with lady Lena, Irene, Tracy, Yuni, and Nunnally sitting down at the dining table while Mother was preparing supper. "Irene?" I asked to confirm her identity and it was her. She turned around and asked me these exact words. "Do I know you?" I was shocked at her response since I had just met her a week ago. Did I really change that much because of the seal? "Oh, Yahiro! Nice of you to join us. I love what you did to your hair, did it grow longer?" Lady Lena asked me so I took a look at the mirror. I took a lock of my hair and examined it. My hair was long, parts of it were would show lines of red, and my eyes stayed blood red. "T-that's Y-Yahiro?" Irene asked nervously as she stood up shaking. Yuni dragged me and put her arm around my neck while she took her other hand and messed up my hair. "Yup! This is Yahiro alright!" the same Yahiro that broke something of sentimental value to her.

There was an uncomfortable vibe for me when we sat down and ate. The thought of not being able to replace an item of such price for Irene intimidated me. "You can look through her memories and find out how she got her mirror and replace it." Tristitia whispered to me. I asked him how I could do it and he showed me through his memories. In order for me to look through someone's memories, a physical contact was necessary through our foreheads.

After supper I asked Irene if she could walk with me for a while, fortunately she accepted. As I looked into her memories, I found a lot of fascinating facts that I never thought she was connected with. Irene was an orphan. And when she was adopted by her mother, she grew to be a well-mannered and delightful girl which everyone admired. Her mother was a cultural coordinator, and she followed her footsteps. As looked deeper and deeper into her memories, I ran into the time when she was orphaned. Irene's house came on fire, and she was the only one who survived. Her foster mother rescued her and found her holding on to a mirror, the same mirror that I swiped from her hands and shattered.

After I had stopped peeking into her memories, I slowly separated my forehead from hers. Instead of being flustered, Irene looked me in the eyes with a worried look. She took a handkerchief from one of her pockets and wiped something on my face; tears. "Why are you crying?" She asked me, yet the only reply I could muster was shaking my head. I was saddened. I saddened by her history of pain, loss, sorrow. She's seen and experienced it all and it was still etched in her mind. Now she follows her stepmother's footsteps and took her place as the cultural coordinator.

As we walked back home, she tried to cheer me up by telling me funny stories about herself. It wasn't easy to make me smile now that I have changed, yet this girl was able to do it without struggle. Something was special about her but I couldn't point my finger on it.  
>"Did Tracy tell you?" she asked me.<br>"Tell me what?" I asked.  
>"She's going to be working with me beginning tomorrow." She replied with a smile.<br>"What do you mean by working with you?  
>"She wanted to work to help your mother for your finances, so Lady Lena introduced her to the Cultural Department in the Royal Court. So she got the job as a cultural coordinator's assistant."<br>"So that means she'll—"  
>"Correct! She'll be working as my assistant!"<p>

She seemed so happy about it that it put a smile to my face. As soon as we reached town square, she began to hum a very familiar tune which had a happy yet sorrowful sound. I thought hard about it and looked through my memories to find the tune, but I couldn't find it. Whatever it was, it soothed my mind and calmed my soul.

The next morning, I woke up and found myself on the floor. Since Nunnally volunteered to give her bed up to make a room for Tracy to stay in, she'd been sleeping on my bed. Today started off cutesy when I found Nunnally and asleep with Sorrow in her arms as well. I came downstairs and found Yuni's bags packed. Since her training was far from complete, she was ordered to go to Lotus Marsh to finish it. After such a short reunion, we go on our separate paths once again. Just before she left, Yuni tied a charm on my left wrist with characters or another language inscribed on it. The letters seemed so familiar yet I don't remember what it meant. "It's an oriental language so mother may be able to translate it. I already know what it means so I won't tell you until we meet again." Yuni told me. She gave me a peck on my cheek and went on her way.

Not understanding what all of these meant, I went to mother immediately to have it translated. I asked her what it meant but all she did in reply was turn her back on me. "Since you two aren't related by blood by any means, I might approve of this." She whispered with a smirk on her face. I was still confused and curious about what it meant so I tried asking Tristitia about it. "I've been to the orient but I never learned their writing." That was his reply. I let out a sigh in failure of unveiling a message left for me.

Today was a normal day for me. Helping mother with the household, playing with Nunnally and Sorrow, and trying out the recipes I found in Tristitia's memories. I was actually having fun. Besides the fact that I was annoyed by how unfamiliar I look with my hair so I had mother and Nunnally help me fix it. "Aw, but long hair suits you perfectly brother." Nunnally explained to me, but nonetheless I wanted it fixed at the least. After two minutes of struggling, I finally gave up and let them do as they pleased with my hair. I do have to admit, I enjoyed it. After three whole ours of playing with my hair, Nunnally and mother decided that I looked my best in a way nobles tie their long hair and called it a "pony tail."

By the time evening came, Tracy came home and packed he bags. I asked her why she packed her bags then she suddenly jumped on me. "The royal court is having me stay on quarters with Irene, that way I won't have to bother you anymore." She said with an empty smile. She was sad of leaving us, this home, and this family. We had our last family supper before she left. Even if she only stayed here for a few days, I cannot deny the fact that we will miss her despite her past circumstances.

The next day, I went to the guild with Nunnally by my side. "Hey Blaze! JM wants to talk to you." One of the guild members told me. We then quickly made our way to JM's office, worried of what he had to say. The tension in my spine had been rising. He had us sit down in front of his desk. "Well if isn't 'Nanapoo!' how come you brought her here Blaze?" he asked me.

"Well, she wanted to come along with me today so I couldn't refuse. After all, she is my sister." I answered to him then he panicked.

"Wait! Does that mean… our precious Kyouko has lain with another man besides our charming Tristan!?" he exclaimed from the top of his lungs.

I placed my hand on my face because of how stupid his theory was, so I explained how Nunnally became my sister. Thankfully he calmed down.

"Back to business. There's been a personal request for you Blaze. It's from a priestess of darkness named Madeline. Your assistance is required in another realm." He proclaimed while he looked me in the eyes with all seriousness, "I've only seen you in action once, so I'm guessing you were still holding back in our little skirmish that night. Go and speak of this to no one."

With that I went home and got Lilith and a bag full of gems, food and clothing. A new journey and a new calamity is nigh.

No matter how many times I've tried to tell Nunnally to stay behind, she wouldn't listen. I'd hate to use my memory erasing ability on her so I just decided that I'm going to have to protect her. As we approached the portal to enter the garden of eternity, we were halted by a friend from the Divine Order. Brother Elijah, our guardian in Kaleon. He was surprised when he realized that it was me. He greeted me as he would greet brothers of the faith greet each other. We exchange greetings and have chatted. He told me bad news in our absence from Kaleon. After Yuni and I departed from the town, the bishop signed a decree of expulsion for me and Yuni, claiming that Yuni and I were Astral Coven spies. Soon after signing the papers, he left the town. Coincidentally, dragon cultists invaded Kaleon and reduced the town in to dust and ashes. Thankfully the town was evacuated. I was saddened from hearing the series of events. After our short reunion, we went ahead to the garden of eternity where I am to meet with priestess Madeline.

The priestess of darkness welcomed us as soon as we entered the garden. She introduced us to another priestess named Maya, who can transform into a dimensional doorman. Something was wrong with the dimensional portal in the garden of eternity. Humans were exiting out of the portal into our world. After they have crossed, a giant hand also came out of the dimension portal and grabbed the humans back into that dimension they were in. They spoke in a language we couldn't understand so they thought of calling a dragon to go in and try to fix the problem. Maya was to be our guide to and from dimensions. However when we have entered the dimension, we arrived at a different one. We were in a place where there were tall buildings made of rock and glass, and metallic carriages that moves without a horse or something to pull it with. People in weird attire and some revealing too much skin. Some of them were looking at a piece of stone as they walked around. A very complicated world they call… Earth.

Maya had never been to this dimension. So I took someone and read their memories. And according to what I have seen, we're in a country called America in a city called New Orleans. 26th of November, year two thousand and forty-seven. They spoke a language called English, it took me a while to grasp the concept of the language but I managed to learn it in a time span of twenty minutes. After I released the man from my grasp, he simply walked away like nothing ever happened. Tristitia informed me that I could give other people the knowledge I obtained using the same method as I read memories. He told me that I could also come up with different ways I can do the deed. Earth used the same date and time scale that we use in Altera so I easily identified what time it was. I asked Maya what we were looking for and her answer only raised questions for me. We're looking for a "lustre."

According to Maya, the lustre we're looking for was somewhat close in our vicinity. We walked around to look for it and even asked around if they're seen a lustre around. All of them responded with questions such as "are you crazy?" "What's a lustre?" "Are you a cosplayer?" questions that roused others' suspicion especially when they saw Lilith. Then all of a sudden, Nunnally decided to cross the road so I went after her. Within that split second that I caught up to her she almost got killed. A black car was coming right at her on the road. I caught her just at the right time. I shielded her as we got hit and rolled over the vehicle. Thankfully she was unharmed. I wiped the dust away from her silver hair then she cried. The priestess ran to us to see if we were alright and so did the driver. But to our surprise, the driver looked like me in every way except for our hair and attire. "Are you alright?" he asked as he panicked and took his phone out and dialed the numbers nine one one. He saw my head was bleeding and some of the people just stood there as the guy panicked. I stood up and helped Nunnally then wiped the dust off our clothing. The guy stood there surprised of our quick recovery. He told us to "take it easy" even if I insisted that we were fine. But I made a mistake. I told him all these things in our language so he didn't understand. He tried to reach for Nunnally so a reflex I had Lilith by his throat. I needed to take precaution with these people and not trust anyone so easily because for all I know, they might have been savages. "We're not savages." He told me. That caught my attention; I lowered Lilith and asked for his name. He called himself Tris.

When the ambulance arrived the paramedics quickly examined me and Nunnally as the police officers questioned Tris what happened. The paramedics were surprised that I survived that crash with just a scratch on my head; normally these people would die just by getting hit by one of these vehicles. They had these instruments to hear our hearts and checked me and my sister's for they could hear a humming sound inside of me and Nunnally besides our hearts. Nunnally's case was different. They didn't find a heartbeat in her, just the humming sound. The paramedics asked us for identification and our social security number but the only thing I could answer was our names. They immediately classified us as "illegal aliens." The police put two silver rings around my wrists tied together. They pulled me to a white and black vehicle, but when they tried to harm my sister, I was angered. I broke the two silver rings and kicked the officer to a wall. The other officer pulled out a yellow piece of plastic that spat out rope and attached to my clothing. The rope emitted electricity and shocked me so I pulled the ropes off of my clothes and cut it with Lilith. The people were in chaos, running away from the scene as far as possible. The two officers recovered and pointed guns at me. I emitted an aura around me and my sister. A shot was fired.

The paramedics drove away as fast as they could away. The bullet hit Maya who came between me and the officer who shot the gun. I sent an electric shock to both officers in the scene and knocked them out. I ran to Maya quickly and casted a healing spell on her wound, thankfully it didn't hit anything crucial. Tris walked closer to us so I pointed Lilith at him. "Do you plan on harming us too? Is this the way this world works? Are you o—"

"No." he replied and didn't let me finish, "I'm here to help, because I also need your help with things you seem to understand that I don't" he told me.

I doubted him; I wasn't sure what to do. So I cooperated with him and looked through his memories. And now, the doubts have been lifted. I erased the police officers' memories of the incident and went with Tris to his dwelling.

There was no way we could return to Altera for the meantime for Maya still laid out cold. Tris had me lay Maya on an empty bed. There was something odd about him. Something like the way I felt when I was with Argenta and Geraint, only a bit stronger. Just when I was about to ask him a question he already gave me an answer. Every other question that popped up in my head he answered in an instant. I came to the conclusion that she could read minds, and to my surprise I was right. We had a conversation in our thoughts alone, and it surprised me that he managed to draw out Tristitia as well. He's read every single detail of my life. I felt violated. I asked him how he does it but the answer I received was something I had not anticipated. He was explicitly different from other people. His friends avoided him, his parents feared him because of his ability so he was casted away and orphaned. He had the ability to read minds and manipulate them as well as produce fire with his hands. Soon after he was orphaned, he was adopted by "Christians." Only they accepted him into their family. From then on he lived his life constantly in a normal manner, trying to control his abilities. Now he has a little sister and has mastered his power with the best of his abilities. But now something new is troubling him. A new power.

I became very astonished of his problem. He was able to produce a very accurate copy of me. From the voice, eyes, stance, basically he was able to make a twin for me. However the imperfection was that he doesn't know how to control the ability itself, nor does the person he mad has any emotions. In time the copy dropped dead and faded into shimmering lights that he absorbs back into his body. I've never seen an ability like his before, even with the sorceresses in Saint's Haven. He made us tea for the meanwhile.

His father was a battlefield corpsman for the U.S. Navy overseas, while his mother was on a business trip in the west coast. I envied him for his father was still alive, but in some circumstances he and I were the same. We suddenly heard a thud from one of the rooms, so Tris and I rushed to that room. When I arrived at the room of which the sound came from, I found another source of his sorrow and burdens. His sister fell on the floor from her bed as she tried to reach for one of her stuffed animals on a shelf, she was crippled. She's been crippled since birth. The poor child never got to experience the joy of running around the streets nor get to walk on the sandy beach. "Heal her and remove the binds from her legs." Tristitia whispered to me so I tried it out. Tris laid his sister on her bed then I casted sacred healing on her legs. Instead of the healing being concentrated on Tris' sister, the spell spread through the whole household. Tris' sister smiled at me and told me that it was alright, that I tried my best. Tris was about to leave the room when she requested for me to help her stand. He quickly turned around and tears rolled down his eyes as she told him "Look brother! I'm standing!"

Joy filled the room as Tris' sister learned how to stand. He held his sister in his arms saying her name [Lizzy] and thanked God. I wanted to leave them in solitude for this moment but I felt a slight tug on my coat sleeve, it was his sister. She thanked me for what I have done, so I smiled at her and gave God the glory. By the next day, she began to learn how to walk. With Maya still asleep, we were still stuck in this dimension. But it didn't seem so bad. Nunnally and Lizzy were having a good time together. They spent most of their time sitting in front of a contraption called a computer, watching moving art they call anime. I was beginning to wonder if this world is more advanced than Altera or not. I told Tris I wanted to explore this world and see it for myself, but he told me that it was dangerous especially with me wearing attire from the "fifteenth century." Alas! This world is more advanced than ours.

Tomorrow, Tris is taking his sister to the doctors then pick us up with his car to buy us clothing of our own. For the meantime, we sat here idly as we waited for Maya to wake. Then a reminder hit me from yesterday's events. They checked our hearts and found a heartbeat in everyone with the exception of a humming noise on mine. However, they didn't find a heart beat in Nunnally, only a humming sound. How come they heard the same humming sound in mine while they heard a heartbeat? Is Nunnally not human? Does she have a lustre inside of her? Wait, did they check if it worked the same with everyone in the scene? I asked myself. I looked into my memories and the answer was no. The paramedics only took a look in mine, Nunnally's, Maya's, and themselves. But they didn't check Tris. He is my alternate self in a sense, so does that mean that he has the lustre we're looking for is in him? Does that mean that I have to kill him to get the lustre? He's been so nice. I don't want to have to kill him. No. I don't have to kill him, because it won't be him. I thought to myself. I was right in a sense. But in all candors, the truth was worse than anyone would anticipate.

Maya had finally awakened. However, her power was still at bay so we still could not return to Altera. I sighed. The next day came and I assisted Tris and Lizzy in getting to the hospital in order to see if there's anything else wrong with her legs. The doctor who was taking care of Lizzy was surprised to see her walking. She didn't even believe that it was Lizzy that was the one she was looking at. When he asked us how it was so, we told him that it was a miracle from God. She scoffed at us for telling her that. I was enraged by the remarks she gave against God. I wanted to kill her but God forbid. she asked us again how we got her to walk again, and so I had Tris close the door. I asked Tris if anybody else knew about his sister's condition and he said no. I then showed the doctor that I wasn't human. I even had to burst out my wings in order to prove it to her. Seeing what I am right now, I couldn't believe that I was once human. I had her silenced about what she witnessed in the room that we were in. I also told her to find a church and repent of all the wrongs she has done and said. Surprisingly she did. We went back home to pick up Maya and Nunnally to get some appropriate clothing in this world. Maya then transformed into her rabbit form and told us not to get her anything for she can simply put up this disguise. She looked like a stuffed animal and she was treated so by Nunnally and Lizzy. In the end, Tris bought all of the clothing that we got. While we skimmed through the clothing stores, I noticed a black denim vest with a detachable hood for sale. I was looking at it intently, asking myself if I should buy it. I wanted it but then Tris would be the one ending up paying. Reading my mind, Tris got the vest and bought it for me.

After a whole day of shopping, we finally got to wear the clothes of this world. I still didn't comprehend why Tris insisted on buying us formal wear. I wanted to repay Tris for his benevolence. He read my mind again and told me that I didn't need to repay him. Even though he refused, I stole the receipt from him and found a big number on it. "$1600!?" I looked in my bag for some kind of money but all I had was eighty pieces of gold coins and six exquisite diamonds. "How much is a diamond worth in this world?" I asked him.

"YOU HAVE A DIAMOND!?" he asked me.

"Yes. Six in fact."

"We're going to a professional!" he exclaimed.

He dragged us back to his car and drove us to a pawn shop. He had the shop owners confirm if what I had was indeed a diamond. A few moments later, the shop employees were rushing to phones. They started to call in other professionals to come in and see if the diamond was legitimate. By the time they arrived and checked it, a museum owner came in and wanted to buy the diamond for two full briefcases of money. It's amazing how fast these people can communicate. By the end of the deal, we came back to Tris' home with two billion dollars. I couldn't believe that they would pay that much for a simple piece of stone. Back in Altera one piece of diamond only cost eighty-six pieces of silver coins.

The first thing Tris did once we have returned to his dwelling was call his mother and informed her of what had happened to day. Not only that, but he also told her about Nunnally, Maya and I. He had so much joy on his face that I envied him. His father was on his way home to retire from being in the military. I yearned for my father. Finally I had my focus back to some questions as to why the paramedics didn't hear Nunnally's heart. I thought that Maya might have known something being a priestess of darkness and all, so I asked her if she could confirm if my sister was indeed human. I needed to know but I ended up regretting asking her. "You're so called sibling is not human… but she's no dragon either." Maya told me something more surprising about her, because it turned out Nunnally was going to become a special part of my life. I didn't want to confront Nunnally of this directly, so I began asking her simple questions and started a small talk. I planned out every single conversation route I could take to get to know how she was taken in by mother. Everything went smoothly until I asked her the main question I had in mind. "So how did mother take you in?" I asked her. She was more mature than I thought. I knew this for she carried a pained expression when I suddenly asked her. It was a sensitive matter and I pried into it. "I… don't remember… my very first memory of mother was my head lying on her lap while soaked in blood… other than that… I…" she tried to explain. A tear rolled down her cheek. Sadness occupied her eyes. Feeling guilty, I wiped her tears away and had her cry on my shoulder. "Say… can I cry on your shoulder whenever I need to?" she asked me as she cried continuously. I told her that I would always be here if she needed a shoulder to cry on. Then I looked in her memories.

Who am I? Where am I? I'm covered in something red, it stinks. I opened my eyes and saw a beautiful woman. My head was lying down on her lap. Water is coming out of my eyes and I can't stop it. The woman smiled at me and wiped away the water. She was kind and gentle with me. She took me to her home through the rocks, rubble, and a lot more red stuff underneath the debris, on the walls and this woman's armor and garments.

She washed me, gave me cloths, fed me, and gave me belonging and safety just like a mother would. Who is my mother? Do I have a mother? Is this woman my mother? Who is this woman? The more I thought about it the more I became uneasy. She had me sleep with her in her room even though there were more rooms than hers. In the middle of the night, she went out of bed and took a shirt from a wardrobe. It was her husband's. She then fell on her knees and mourned. Soft, weary cries came from her. So I went out of bed and gave her a comforting hug, trying to stop her from crying anymore. She told me I was somehow stronger than she was in emotional terms. She turned her frown into a smile. I couldn't wait any longer. "Do you know who I am?" I asked her, "Do you know who my mother is? Why are you treating me like your own child? Are you my mother?" I asked her all these questions. She had a surprised look on her face and asked me if I remember anything from my past, and I said no. She smiled at me and then patted my head and said "from now on, your name is Nunnally. You're now my daughter and I will love you as my own Nunnally." When we got back to bed, she sung a lullaby in a different language that I couldn't understand. But… it was still soothing.

More and more each day, I slowly became her daughter. One day she took me to a café and found me friends. Though the friends she found me were quite older than me. And when she noticed, she introduced me to a girl who was four years older than I was. Or so the woman told me. Her name was Kelly. She was very nice. And even at her age, she was still clumsy and playful. When the woman took us back home, a sorceress by the name Stella came to visit. The woman and the sorceress were having a conversation about the events a few days ago; the siege.

"I can't believe how fast you've recovered." The sorceress told her.

"Well… the pain and sorrow still lingers in my heart. The loss of my husband and the fact that I may not be able to see my children ever again pains me. However, I found someone to fill that emptiness in my heart." The woman replied then looked at me with eyes mixed with sorrow and joy.

"You adopted a new daughter?" The sorceress asked then let out a sigh, "well I can't blame you for your decisions. After all, you can't resist a cute face like that now can you?"

The sorceress knelt down to my height and pinched my cheeks hysterically. I tried to reach out to the woman. "M-mother!" I accidentally called her, but it seemed so natural. "P-pwease hewp mwee." I saw a joyful surprised look on the woman's face, and then she took me away from Stella. Both of them laughed as to how I ran behind her and hid from the sorceress, I hid my face in embarrassment. After the sorceress left, the woman explained how she had two other children besides me. For the rest of that night and to this day, I began to acknowledge her as my mother.

I didn't quite understand why Nunnally's memories didn't go further. Normally when I look into someone's memories I could go at any given time in their memory, even to the day they were born. Even with that kind of memory, I felt Nunnally's despair and emptiness that she felt back then; poor child. She cried herself to sleep on my arms. It was evening already so I had Maya sleep with her while I slept on the couch.

I had a dream… no, a trip inside Tristitia's memories. It was raining that day, the day they took the green dragon down. The previous green dragon was strong and valiant. And even though he was a child of the _Tempest dragon_ and Tristitia's enemy, he treated Tristitia as a good friend. He knew Tristitia would one day have to kill him, but he showed no care. Tristitia was the only friend that he had. So when the day came when Geraint and Argenta came to seal his lustre, he asked Tristitia for one last request. "Forget me…" I asked Tristitia why they had to seal the lustre and why he couldn't just give the lustre up so they would leave him alone.

"Well my friend… in order for a dragon to live, it needs its lustre. In other words, a lustre is its source of life or a heart to humans."

"But wouldn't that mean that you-"

"Yes… in order to take his lustre, we would have to kill him."

I continued through his memory of the green dragon. In the end, Tristitia was the one to kill him. He had a chain pierce through the green dragon in its human form. Right before it died, Tristitia caught him in his arms and whispered his final words. "I'm glad… I got to know you…" then it faded into a bright light and produced its lustre. Tristitia gave the lustre to Geraint and told him to give it a proper sealing.

I had no idea he had a painful past other than being betrayed by his loved one. Now I understand why he was called the dragon of sorrows. Normal people would break into tears even mourn for a friend dying in your arms, but he took it and showed nmo remorse on his face. Just tears of blood slowly running down from his eyes. I felt pity for him, but at the same time I admired him. The first thing I did when I woke up was get dressed for our rendezvous with Tristi's mother at the airport. I looked like a butler for crying out loud. When I came out of the room, I went to go look for Tristi. I heard the television on so I went to the living room. He was watching the news where it reported and airline crash on a desert near Nevada. I sensed a lot of despair in the room. I then ran to Tris and shook his shoulders. I told him to get a hold of himself as he was crying. His mother was on the same flight as that airline and it showed that no one in that plane survived and the cause of the crash was unknown. I turned the television off and told him to calm down. In all honesty, I also needed to calm down.

I felt sorry for him that I let him cry on my shoulder. He kept on saying that he wanted to die, so I slapped him and gave him some sense. I lectured him about what could happen to his whole family if he died as well. And the one thing that got him to understand was if he was to die, his sister would be all alone and sad as well. He cried even more, I felt like I've been in this situation before. I took his sorrow away but I didn't take away his memories because I figured that would be too cruel. He then locked himself in his room after that. I told Nunnally to watch over Tris and his sister as I left to go outside for a moment. I was just walking around. I went into a restaurant to drown the sorrow I took with alcohol. Then the waitress asked me if I was alright so I looked her in the eyes to reply. I saw despair in her eyes as well even if she was smiling. I told her that her smile was empty and that I saw sorrow in her eyes. She had the look of amazement in my statement. She asked me for my name so I introduced myself as Blaze. She called herself Anne and invited me to talk once her work shift was done. Of course, I couldn't say no.

She took me to a park near the restaurant and the sky was already changing colours. I still don't know what her intentions were but I trusted her. When I decided to ask her what she wanted to talk about, her fake smile disappeared. She asked me how I knew she was giving a fake smile despite no one else was able to tell. The sadness in her eyes grew bigger. If I told her that I wasn't human, she would've just laughed at me, so I decided to tell her that I had the same look in my eyes almost my entire life. She then became curious of me and began to ask me questions about myself. When I asked her about hers, she somehow had the hint of hesitation in her voice. She was four years older than me, she lost her father when she was two years of age and her mother passed away two years ago because of cancer. So now, she works in this restaurant that helps her live alone. The only source of her joy is her friends and her lover. However, even her boyfriend was becoming another source of her pain. Speak of the devil. Her boyfriend showed up to take her home. But no matter how many times she refused, her boyfriend forcefully grabbed her hand and dragged her. I gave out a sigh and interfered by simply reminding him about her refusal. I saw anger in his eyes as he looked at me. He asked me what I was to her and introduced myself as just an acquaintance. I smelled alcohol on him, he was drunk. He said that if I was just an acquaintance that I shouldn't be interfering. I didn't want to just leave it like that. I reached for Lilith but then I remembered that I left her home. "Trying to pick a fight boy?" he asked me as he pulled out a knife. Anne Tried to stop him so I could run away but he simply pushed her down on the pavement. I got in a stance and knew that it won't end well.

Blood was running down my suit. He successfully stabbed me and his face was filled with delight. I was surprised at first but it went away. The pain already numbed. I took his hand with the knife still in me and gripped it real hard that I got him to let go and back off. I pulled the knife out and licked the blood off of it. Both of them looked at me in fear. I put the blade between two three of my fingers and broke it. I looked at my wound to check if it's already healed and it did. A mild aura emitted around me. Then Tristitia reminded me that they were just human. I was ashamed of myself for being succumbed to wrath. Then I apologized for showing such an unpleasant sight. Anne's boyfriend ran away and left her behind. I offered her a hand to stand, this time she hesitated to take my help. She was afraid. She mustered up the courage to take my hand and asked me if I was okay. But I didn't answer, instead I returned the question to her and she said yes. She had a scratch on her elbow and sprained her ankle. I had her sit down at a bench to take a look at her ankle.

"Are you a doctor?" she asked me.

"Kind of… I'm only seventeen years of age so I cannot take up a profession of that sort just yet." I replied to her as I was healing her ankle.

"You're only seventeen!?"

"Yes, is something the matter?"

"N-nothing. You just looked like you were in your early twenties that's all."

I didn't really get why she was asking me about my age.

She was surprised that the pain in her ankle suddenly disappeared and that her scratch on her elbow was completely healed. She asked me if I was some sort of magician or sorcerer of some sort, naturally I explained to her the difference between clerics and sorceresses. My tongue slipped when I told her about my first adventures with Yuni but she didn't say anything about it. She just smiled as I told her the story; it was as if she was starting to believe it even if she barely knows me. It was already night and the streets were dark. I asked her if she wanted to see another secret before I escort her home and she agreed. I only got to fly once and that was when I flew with Geraint to the Black Mountain Stronghold, so I don't know if I'll be able to fly alright. I brought my wings out. I loved the fact that it goes through my clothing. I reached my hand out for her to see if she will trust me and surprisingly she did. I carried her on my arms and flew. And just like Sun and Yuni with me, she held on as tight as possible. I asked her if she wanted to go somewhere before I take her to her home so she pointed to the direction of the pier. The scene was well lit by moonlight, such a beautiful sight. The silence completed the beauty of the scene but that silence was broken by a serious question that came from Anne. "What are you?"

Stricken and not knowing how to answer that question right off the bat gave another silence to fall on the scene. After finding something to say, I simply tried to smile at her and looked her in the eye and said, "You wouldn't want to know." Somehow that sentence got her to be saddened once again, but I didn't want her to know what I was. She walked up to me and reached for my head. She spoiled me by patting my head. She had a motherly aura on her. And without even realizing it, I completely succumbed to her hand that was running through my hair.

She was a persistent person. Even when I already took her home, she kept on bugging me about what I was. I consulted with Tristitia and he dictated that it doesn't matter if this person knew. She even invited me in for some coffee, so how could I refuse. Just like she said, she was indeed alone. With that I began calling her the "lonely lass on Earth." She punched me softly a couple of times for calling her that. She showed me a lot of things from books to even her personal drawings. However, her drawings seemed to have a familiar style of art. I kept thinking and thinking until I saw the answer in one of her drawings._ "Hetalia,"_ an anime that Nunnally and Lizzy adore so much. She thanked me for erasing one of her problems and smiled at me. Her smile was still empty but it had lightened up a bit. She looked at me in the eyes with eyes of wonder, getting closer and closer to my face. "What are you doing?" I asked her out of panic. Then quickly she backed off and stayed silent for a while, looking at the floor with her face bright red up to her ears. She showed me the way out as I was about to leave. I thanked her for her hospitality. "Oh! Before I leave." I told her and got her to look at me, "If you're still wondering what I am then let this be etched in your memory. I'm no human. Well not anymore at least. I am a creature which we call dragons."

I couldn't stop thinking about Anne's facial expression when I told her that I was a dragon. She held soft, happy yet terrified face. "Don't fall in…" Tristitia told me. His voice carried an assurance that I may get in trouble if I do. When I arrived back at Tris' house, I heard laughing and crying. I knocked on the door and was surprised for the one that opened the door was a face I never expected. She had a surprised look as well then she called Tris. "Wow! You weren't lying when you said there was someone that looked exactly like you." The woman said to Tris, "it's like you have a twin!" it was like a dream. Now I understood that this wasn't just another dimension, it was an alternate universe. I lost myself in thought of trying to grasp the situation and the woman in front of me. Unconsciously, I made a very big mistake of calling her something that she was not… "Mother?"

Surprised by what I said, both the woman and Tris froze. I was stupid of saying that. I wanted to try something out which was stooped of me. I laid my hand on the woman's forehead and focused. Miraculously, I got in her memories. I erased the thing I've said in her memory and the fact that I touched her. Unfortunately since I only tried this on her, I made a minor mistake of making her forget what she had done in the past week. Tris sighed and called me an idiot. I was certain that he read my mind. Without further ado, Tris' mother invited me in.

It's already been a week of no progress, and Tris' father is coming back in the ship and crew he served in. I let out a sigh of depression and boredom and Maya noticed. She asked me if I was alright and I simply told her that I was bored. She went ahead and told Tris so he came to me and asked me if I wanted to go around town and do something afterwards. Without hesitation, I agreed to whatever he had in store for the day. He asked his mother if he could take us to the World War Two museum and the mall and his mother gave him permission. So that morning, we embarked on a tour of New Orleans and the WWII museum.


	7. Chapter 7: Lustre

_**Barren Cross Ch. 7  
>Lustre<strong>_

Yesterday was fun. At daybreak, I decided to walk in the park with Nunnally. It was a nice day. The sky was changing colours, few people were walking around, and birds were singing a chorus. I was relaxed as I strolled. By a sudden coincidence, Anne took a morning jog at the same park. And the moment she caught a glimpse of me, she waved at me and began to head toward me. She halted her jog to join me in my walk even though I told her not to let me bother her in any way possible. On the contrary, she asked me if I was bothered by her presence which was complete and utter nonsense to me. Then she noticed Nunnally. When Anne tried to talk to Nunnally, she ran behind my back. We both laughed then exchanged introductions. Anne and Nunnally began to get along with each other. "So how are you guys related?" Anne asked, so we told her that we were brother and sister. She couldn't believe it because of our huge differences in our appearance. I had to explain how we were siblings and she quickly understood. After breakfast Anne told us that she was going to spend the day with her friends in the mall. She invited us to go with them. I wanted to see if Nunnally wanted to but judging by the glimmer in her eyes when she looked at me intently, I knew that she wanted to go so I accepted her offer. We were going to meet up at her workplace at noon.

We were two minutes late. As a punishment, they planned on making me do something embarrassing. We went on an SUV. Nunnally and I looked out in the window and were astonished by the view of the waters as well as the city. It's amazing how this world was so peaceful, free of worry. Such a wonderful place to be, even Nunnally said so.

It was time for my punishment… I still didn't know what the embarrassing part was. I got out of the dressing room wearing all the garments they gave me and looked at me with stunned faces. The clothes they gave me were much harder for me to put on than the ones I had on me, especially the skirt and shoes. They took the red string that Nunnally and mother used to tie my hair and tied it to the left side of my hair. It was easy for me to move, but the stares I got from Anne and her friends made me uneasy. Even Nunnally was staring at me intently. I gave out a sigh as they dragged me all around the clothing stores and had me wear feminine clothing. Whenever they found something that seemed magnificent, they had me try it on and show it off to them. In the end, Nunnally was the one to pick out all my garments as I picked hers. We all had a laugh at some stores especially when the clerks asked me and Nunnally if we were mother and daughter or sisters. They didn't believe that I was her brother until one of Anne's friends flipped my skirt up. The looks on their faces were priceless.

It was about time we went back into hour homes. But before we left, they asked us if we would be interested in joining them for dinner. Normally we couldn't refuse, so we went to a fancy restaurant complete with personal waiters, chandeliers, a glorious Victorian hall, as well as musicians. The food was exquisite as well. But every day doesn't end well, and this day just transpired to be one of those days. By the time we were ordering dessert, I felt a horrid presence within the area. It was a presence with evil intent which led me to thinking if I was a magnet for malicious entities. This wasn't something I could just ignore, so I listened in to every conversation and sensed every person's aura. One man stood out and I was sure that it was him, a person right across our table. I looked at him and made eye contact which forced him to finally make a move.

Shots were fired and everyone was on their knees, all but one. The person who fired the gun spoke crude English as he announced himself to be a remnant of a group named ISIS. He then threatened to shoot me if I didn't get on my knees. His gun was shaking as he pointed at me. So I took a step and he grazed my left shoulder. The sting was painful yet not enough to bring me to my knees, but I did accordingly as I held the wound he inflicted upon me. He called me an infidel scum. Anne's friends' teeth were chattering out of fear while Nunnally and Anne remained calm. I stood and put up a barrier as I approached him. He tried to shoot me, but each and every bullet he shot dropped at the instance they hit my barrier. He glared at me terrified and asked me "what are you?" I grabbed his collar and formed a spear-like figure with my hand. "I am a messenger." I answered. Then I stabbed him with my hand through his heart and body all the way to my elbow. It was gruesome.

When the police arrived, I altered everyone's memories except my companions as to how the incident took place. The ISIS remnant dies by being stabbed in the heart by a chandelier. The people inside the restaurant had no idea of what really happened anymore. The rest of the night Anne and her friends kept on asking me about the way I managed to deal with the incident, and I kept on trying to avoid the topic. Finally it got on my nerves so I told them that I would erase that part of their memories if they kept on bugging me so they stopped. They dropped us off with Anne at the park where we met earlier and walked Anne back home. Tomorrow was the day when we went to port and welcomed Tris' father home.

That morning at port, Tris and I wore the same clothing to confuse his father. It was somewhat stupid considering my hair was longer that his, my eyes were different than his, and I'm a tad bit taller. After a few minutes of waiting, we finally sight the ship arriving. It was an enormous ship with people standing by the edges of its deck. "It's an aircraft carrier." Tris explained to me. Nunnally and I were amazed. Everyone around us was filled with joy of knowing that a loved one has returned. And when I was basking in the presence of the ship, a surprise hit me in the face as hands quickly covered my eyes. "Guess who?" was the question asked to me by the person covering my eyes. I didn't know who it was so I placed my hand behind me and grabbed something warm and soft. There was a squeal and that was when I recognized the voice. I took the person's hands off and found that my guess was right. It was Anne. After she slapped me for a reason she did not state whatsoever, she explained to me how she was waiting for her brother form a twelve-month deployment at sea. Then she asked me why I was here. I was getting comfortable being around her, comfortable enough that I would call her my friend.

As the tug boats were settling the ship, an eerie presence appeared in the area. I don't know where it exactly is but I had a bad feeling. It was bothering me like something very sinister was about to happen. I advised Anne and Tris to leave to a safe place but all they thought was that I was being paranoid. And just when I felt that the presence was of no harm, the ship burst into flames. Everybody was in panic. Sailors jumped in the water, and a human-like figure was floating over the ship. I already knew that it was the cause of the havoc so I flew to it and attempted to stop it. As I was about to swing my sword at him, I remembered that I left it in Tris' car. In return, it attacked me and flung me towards another dock. It knew that I was after it, so it turned the tables and ran after me. As I got back up to the sky, it had spell circles surrounding him. Those spell circles casted chains from a void with sharp blades flying toward me. Luckily I dodged all of them but little did I know that because I dodged those chains, they hit the ship and caused yet another explosion. More people were killed yet it just stood there with a sinister grin.

A miracle came at my way when I heard Maya call my name from the ground. She had my sword Lilith with her. I finally had a chance to fight back. I seized Lilith from her and began my counterattack. Each and every strike was compelling with pain as both our swords clashed together. "Blaze!" Tris called me so I looked at him. He told me to dodge as he formed a black ball of flame on his hand. Then he hurled it towards our enemy. It was a direct hit. It turned its attention from me to Tris as he got engulfed in flames. It dived into the water and flew back to the ground. As I was making my way there, it blew away Tris. Suddenly, it changed its target which caused me to halt and stood on guard for a brief moment. It was a very terrible mistake. It began to target Lizzy.

I'm an idiot, a very big imbecile. I was too late. Tris' mother tried to save her but it only cost both their lives. Seeing this unfold, Tris was shocked and enraged. His aura changed with full bloodlust in his eyes, lusting for its head. Now it targeted Nunnally, Anne and Maya. This thing had to be stopped. Tris made an imitation of me, but it wasn't just any imitation. It was the perfect copy. Tris, the copy and I attacked it simultaneously with a mighty rage. Every single blow began throwing it to its knees slowly.

We thought we were winning until the enemy let out a powerful roar. A roar powerful enough to destroy the clone, throw Tris to a wall and me in the water. It began targeting me again and dove into the water. It blew me out of the water. I couldn't move and so couldn't Tris. It stood above me with a sinister grin as he pointed his sword at me. I prayed my final words. That was until I heard a scream a scream that said my name. The sound came from Nunnally running toward me. I reached toward her but nothing changed. It stabbed me. God was with me. I heard Nunnally chanting a very refining verse. I came to realize that it missed my luster, so I pulled the blade out and pushed it back toward it. And just when it was about to stab me for the second time, Nunnally turned into a sword and spun toward its arms cutting them enough to inflict so much pain. Enough pain to cause it to fall back on its bottom screaming "it hurts! It hurts!" Many questions arose in my mind but that wasn't the time to ask them.

I copied Geraint's skill and blasted wind on it and got it in the water. At that time, I took Lilith and Nunnally on my hands and casted sacred healing to everyone besides it that was alive in the area. And when it emerged out of the water, its arms were no more. It yelled out "it stings! It stings!" and launched a couple of chains on me. With enough speed and luck, I was able to dodge all of its chains and got close enough to kill him. With all my might, I slashed through his body without a hitch.

As its body was fading, it gave yet another sinister grin saying "Congratulations… your friend is now dead." I looked behind him and one more chain was launched before I slashed him. But it wasn't for me. I followed the direction of the chain and it led to Tris. He was impaled by its chain. I hurriedly ran to Tris and began to cast healing on him. The chain faded from his body but the blood loss and wound was too much. Tris' body began to fade as well.

With his dying breath, Tris asked me why he didn't trust me when I told them to evacuate. And why his mother and sister didn't run away. I took his hard and gripped it as tears rolled from my eyes as I apologized to him consistently. I wanted to say more but he stopped me, comforting me saying that it wasn't even my fault. And in his last breath, he gave me his dying wish. "Use my lustre… and kill… each and every… one of them… you're a good friend…"

He completely faded into light then his lustre landed on my hands. I stood up and turned around. Maya approached me with two more lustres which had me confused. One of the lustres was identical to that of Tris and confused me even more. That was until Maya told me that one of the lustres were incomplete. She got the other lustre from Lizzy, so I took both their lustres and tried to fuse them together and my assumption was right. As soon as two lustres came in contact, both of them fused into one slightly bigger lustre.

I wiped my tears away and asked Maya what she was going to do with the lustres now that she had them. Then she offered them to me. "My only calling is to fix dimensions, not to keep track of dragons' lives." I took them and was confused on what I should do with them. "fuse them with my, I mean your lustre." Tristitia told me.  
>"How and why exactly?" I asked him.<br>"Simply take the lustre and push it into your heart. As for why, it can benefit you. You seal them and gain their abilities and they can live inside your heart. However, there's a cost. You have to let the lustre succumb to you and not let yourself succumb to it for that may decide who controls this body. It's a risk, but it's a risk worth taking."  
>"So Tris and Lizzy can live inside my heart… but that would mean that they'll have to live with the person that killed them."<br>"Then eradicate that personality and take over the lustre. As for Tris and Lizzy's lustre, I suppose you could just negotiate with the persons in the lustre in your subconscious."  
>"What?"<br>"It's complicated. But it's your choice not mine."

He told me to make a choice. And it was a choice I did without any regrets.

Tris and Lizzy's lustre had a faint blue glow around it, while "its" lustre had an ominous red glow. Choosing which one to fuse first was difficult. After a lot of hard thinking, I decided to put Tris and Lizzy's first. It gave me a shock when it plunged itself within me. The pain was the same pain which I had received when Tristitia broke his first seal. I fell on the ground, coping with the pain. I reached out for the sky and that's when three hands grabbed mine. One hand from Maya, another from Nunnally, and the last hand came from someone familiar which I couldn't make anyone out of. Trying to endure the excruciating pain, my vision faded.

I was in a dark void again with 2 shimmers of light. One of those lights was Tristitia which left me to one more assumption. Once again, my assumption was right. The lustre took form of two people, Tris and Lizzy. "You who wish to use our power. Let it be known to you that we have our circumstances." Both of them said to me.  
>"I do not seek your power only, but also your forgiveness."<br>"Forgiveness of what? You, The person which we called Blaze. A person bearing the name Yahiro, have no need for our forgiveness. For in times of need, you were there for us."  
>"But I'm also the reason why you—"<br>"Think naught of it. Time draws near for us to be sealed. Blaze… our friend. Promis us that you will use our power for good and just purposes."  
>"I promise."<br>"And with that, our contract is sealed… Remember us."  
>After our conversation, everything faded.<p>

My brother suddenly fainted on a very bad moment. Anne's brother survived and helped us carry him out of the place thanks to Anne's persuasion. Her brother called himself a corpsman. We ran to Anne's car carrying my brother and his sword. Anne's brother Tim, told us to stay in the car as he ran back to help those whom have been wounded. I was worried. Not only about Anne's brother, but also for mine. His cold sweat ran down from his brow, and the expression of pain in his eyes only made it worse. I have a lot of questions to ask him like why I could turn into a sword, who I was, why all this was happening, are we going to see mother again, or what was I exactly? As those question buried in my head, I began to weep.

Maya was holding on to some orb with a red color. It got me curious as to what it was so I asked her. This red orb is what we came for, the reason why so many people died, why Lizzy died, the reason why my brother was suffering. I felt so weak, but there was nothing I could do. I prayed to God not to let him die, to let his suffering end, and give him strength to move along. My prayer was answered for a brief moment as he put his hand on my face and shipped my tears away. But all of that ended when he told the priestess "put the next lustre in. I'm ready."

My brother was lying down as Maya dropped the orb into him. Once again he was in a lot of pain, but it seemed like the pain became lighter for he did not pass out this time. I held his hands and played over him. This time Anne held my brother's head, trying to ease his pain as she stroked his hair. And after a few more minutes of struggling, my brother calmed down and fell asleep.

We waited for hours and hours before we got to leave that port. Tim received a medal for his duties. He reported everything that he saw except for my brother as a favor from Anne. While we were on our way to Anne's house, Tim asked us questions concerning what happened while my brother lay asleep. "Where are you three from?" Tim asked  
>"You wouldn't believe us if we told you." The priestess replied<br>"By what I've seen I think I'm ready to believe anything you have to say."  
>So the priestess explained everything to Tim. They kept on and on with the questioning that it began to hurt my head. Soon, I had already fainted.<p>

I have won against the lustre, and my body feels much lighter. I wished all of this would end already, but it was only the beginning. I slowly opened my eyes finding my foread with a damp cloth and Nunnally sleeping beside me. I took the cloth off my forehead and headed for the door. As I was about to reach for the handle then unfamiliar man opened the door. I leapt back and tried to reach for my sword at my side, but Lilith wasn't there. I quickly took a fighting stance against the man.

Being the idiot that I am, a book flew at me from behind and hit my head. "Stop it." Anne said to me, "is this how you treat your savior in Altera?" I was surprised when she mentioned Altera. After a while of confusion, they explained everything that happened while I was out cold. One thing that really annoyed me though was how Anne's brother kept referring to me as the "dragon of sorrows." I have a name for crying out loud. I tried reading his mind so I concentrated as hard as I could, and I was not amused of what I heard. "Thanks to this twerp, I might get dishonorably discharged." I laughed at him.

They all looked at me like I was some crazy person. I smiled and tried to read Tim's mind again, but I couldn't. I was confused. "Finally you stooped making that face." Tim addressed to me. He told me that I was making an awry smile that looked like I was being forced to. I was annoyed, but God tells us not to provoke ourselves unto wrath. Going back to the mind-reading matter, u asked Anne to think of something once. I read her mind again and told her what she was thinking of. She gave me a shocked look. Then I told her to think of something once more and it confirmed my assumptions. I could only read a person's mind once.

I had a long nice chat with Tim and Anne before we left. I was kind of sad of leaving this world, but I'm also worried of staying. As Maya opened the portal back to Altera, Nunnally and I said our goodbyes to them. Nunnally clung on to Anne's leg right before we left. It took me and Tim to get her off so we kind of had something to laugh about (even though I couldn't actually show it). We finally entered the portal back to Altera. And just when I thought my problems from Earth were gone, Anne popped out of the portal right before it closed.


	8. Chapter 8: Disappear

_**Barren Cross Ch. 8  
>Disappear<strong>_

I covered my face with my hand as Nunnally once again clung on to Anne's leg once she saw her. I couldn't help but ask her of all the stupid things that she could've done, why did she jump in the portal to Altera? Even if I was slightly bit angered, I found her answer to my question amusing. "My brother always wanted me to travel around and so I followed you for some adventure!" she said to me. I honestly didn't know for how long she prepared for the travel. She had a bag full of stuff from Earth. It was as if she was planning on going with us to Altera ever since the day that I first met her. I asked Maya if Anne coming over to Altera would cause an imbalance to the dimensions, and luckily she said no.

Seeing us emerge from the portal, Priestess Madeline ran to us and asked us if the portal didn't work (it did). Then she told us that it was only a second ago that we entered the portal. It was as if we never left! I looked at Maya as her herself was in a confused state. So she took out the dimension key along with the letter from the head doorman that contained the request. We read through the letter together but Maya didn't bother to read the bottom part labelled with a postscript. We didn't find any answer in the main letter so I got curious about the postscript note. Then she told me a story of how the head doorman always put something stupid on the bottom of the postscripts that he sends. Maya stopped reading it after she gave the head doorman a beating for sexually harassing her with the postscript. It made sense but I asked her if we could read it since the answer might be there. And even though she said that it was a slim chance of that happening, it did. "P.S. Give this letter and key to Tristitia. Since he's a guardian he needs to have it in case any monster or dragon escapes into another dimension. Please, I don't want the silver dragon to get on my case again! –Fluffles (Head Doorman)" After reading everything, Maya hesitated to give me the key. And to be honest, I didn't care if she gave it to me or not. But after clearing her doubts, Maya gave me the key. There was one problem though… how in the world do I use this.

Maya gave me a step by step instruction on using the key. I thought that it was going to be easy. I was wrong. First, the key bearer must have an expedient amount of mana. Second, the user can only go to places that have something that needs to be fixed or destroyed. Third, a dimension that has already been visited can be visited again. Fourth, the user must have something from the world he wants to revisit in order to do so. Fifth, TRY not to meet another self in other dimensions unless it is crucial or necessary that the user does. Otherwise calamity will befall the user's party and the purpose which they came in the dimension in the first place. So basically, all I have to do is force some mana into the key and it will take me to the dimension I need to be in or want to be in. This was more painful than what I initially thought.

I had the key dangling around my neck as Nunnally, Anne and I headed back home. And on our way there, we ran into Sun. Anne jumped in excitement being the earthling that she was. She took out her camera and took pictures of Sun. "Yay! It's a real elf!" she squealed happily. Sun being confused by everything that was happening, asked me what was going on? It took me a while to explain everything to her. However in all of that confusion, I think I forgot something really important.

I remembered that important thing after arriving home. Anne couldn't speak or understand our language. Anne zoomed in the house and tried to introduce herself to my mother, and of course my mother couldn't understand a word she spoke. After I've implanted our language in Anne's mind, she made everyone in the room laugh when she asked a question. "Say Blaze! Is she your wife?" I pinched the ridge of my nose to stop laughing and told her that she was mistaken. "Anne, this is our mother. She is currently 34 years of age." I had told her. She complimented my mother of how young she looked. Anne thought my mother was still in her early twenties.

We spent the entire afternoon trying to explain everything to mother. Supper was drawing near, so I took Anne to the guest room right next to mine. She amazed me of how prepared she was. She came with clothes and everything. And after I've helped her settle in, mother entered my room with a cheery look on her face. She sat down right next to me on my bed and said something confusing. "If you're always this exposed to women, I'm starting to wonder if poor Yuni has a chance against them." I never understood her words. I regretted not understanding her words within weeks.

While Anne was still in her room, I went down because there was one more question lying in my head. Why and how did Nunnally change into a sword back on Earth? Nunnally was sitting down beside mother, helping her knit a sweater for Sorrow. She turned around and gave me a bright smile. However no matter how bright her smile was, I could still see and sense the sorrow that's in her. As I began to approach them Nunnally's smile dimmed. "Why didn't you ask me to help?" I asked mother and Nunnally. They looked at me in confusion. "The sweater I mean."  
>"Oh! Well we started as soon as you came back since you were busy with your 'friend.'" My mother told me emphasizing the word "friend."<br>"I have some idea on what we could embroider on Sorrow's sweater."  
>"Great! What do you want on his sweater?"<br>"A dragon… and a sword."  
>I saw Nunnally flinch by the corner of my eye. The fact that she was able to turn into a sword still bothered her. It irked me so I stopped stalling and went straight to the question.<br>"Why can Nunnally turn into a sword?" I asked mother in all seriousness. Then mother put down her knitting needles and looked at Nunnally with a very comforting smile.  
>"I took Nunnally in as my own child after the siege had ended. However, I already had her even before you were born Yahiro. She has a twin sister who was always stuck with your father. They were always in our quests." Mother had concluded.<br>"Wait, so does that mean that Nunnally is actually my bigger sister?" I had to ask.  
>"Let me finish… I'll give you 2 hints. First the first question you asked was wrong. Second, her twin is still in the room with us." As soon as mother said this, Nunnally and I began to look around the room as hard as we could, yet we couldn't. Mother sighed. "The question you asked earlier. 'Why can Nunnally turn into a sword?' was not the right question."<br>"Then what is the right question."  
>"'Why can Nunnally turn into a human?' is the right question" Mother told us to which confused me even more. "At the day of the siege five years ago… Nunnally's twin was with your father even till his final breath. I took Nunnally and her twin home and left her twin there. Then there was this ogre that was holding some glowing stone. And when I killed the ogre, the stone it held flew and fused in with Nunnally. Or maybe I should start calling you by your real name… Tilith…" I was in a state of shock as mother concluded the puzzle with a name that seemed so familiar. I looked at Nunnally who was gazing at mother with teary eyes.<br>"So, you're basically saying that—"  
>"Yes." Mother cut me off.<p>

Now I finally grasped Nunnally's identity. Her and her twin stood side by side along with my parents. A sword used by my mother, and her twin was used by my father and now currently by my side. They were swords refined at the same time, swords with a silver edge and the strength of a thousand blades.

"So that means I'm not human at all… I'm just a tool for killing…" Nunnally told me as she looked at me with a distressful smile. I never imagined that a nine-year-old child would be as sensitive as her. The discovery affected her mental state too much, and I didn't want to erase her memory as well. So mother and I knelt down and wiped her tears away. "Do you feel sad?" I asked.  
>"Yes." She answered<br>"Do you love mother and me?"  
>"Yes."<br>"Then you're human."  
>She looked at me with a confused look<br>"Humans are characterized by being able to commune and express emotions, think for themselves, to breathe, to love, to smile, to cry. So I you can do these things, then you can consider yourself human." As I said these words, I began to realize that I was starting to lose all of those things.  
>"No matter what you are, your brother and I will love you as our own nonetheless." My mother said to her as she looked at me too.<p>

Nunnally held us in her arms and thanked me for assuring her that she wasn't just a tool for murder, assuring her that she was one of them… human. I couldn't feel whether to be happy or sad. I was truly losing my ability to feel completely. My lips couldn't bear a smile or a frown. I was beginning to be a void vessel of a monster I didn't realize was there.

The next day, I asked Nunnally and Mother if they could show Anne around Saint's Haven for me since I was going on a commission with Sun in Liverwort Marina. We rested in a secluded place we found in the dungeon we were in, and I stood watch. All was calm and cooler than what it usually is in the marsh, and then I sensed someone following us. I took Lilith out of her sheathe and told the pursuer to step out of the tree she had been hiding behind. And to our surprise, it was Anne. Anne didn't want to stay in the city on her first day in Altera so she followed us in the dungeon, which was SO terribly stupid. I told her this and she asked why. I had to explain to her how the dungeons in Altera worked. And as soon as she heard the word monsters she became more excited rather than terrified. I was at a loss for words. This girl was crazy! As we sat down and rested, my mind was at ease. That was until Sun told me something that I didn't want to hear, and I couldn't understand why. "Sorrow is in your eyes and not a single smile has cracked from your lips today. Is there something wrong Blaze?" she asked me with a fretful expression. I wanted to smile for her but I couldn't. Anne asked me the same thing, and I became overwhelmed with grief. I really wanted to smile again.

At that time, I was pulled into a void. Tristitia was there already waiting for me. There was something different from him because he had an atrocious aura. "Child, I will release the final seal." Tristitia told me.  
>"But you'll disappear and y—!"<br>"SHUT UP!" He responded with a more hostile tone. I became wary, "I'm not going to disappear… because you're going to give me your body."

I was confused. I got on guard.

"This seal is going to release the core of my power! ALL OF IT! And I'm not just about to give it to you. YOU FILTHY SCUM OF A HUMAN! I controlled you from the shadows all this time and it's time for me to take the control!" He yelled as he began attacking me inside the void.

I was really confused. So I only continued to dodge his attacks as we had a chat.

"Why are you doing this!?" I asked him.  
>"You're really an imbecile aren't you? Now that 'he's' gone, I can finally carry out my plan to destroy this world!"<br>"I don't get why you're doing this, but if that's your plan then I'm going to stop you!"

A battle had begun in my sub-consciousness as I had no idea what had begun happening outside of my body.

[Anne's POV]

Blaze was silent… until a smile cracked on his face; A horrid malicious smile. He looked at Sun and approached her, but there was something wrong with him. Sun had her back to Blaze when he raised his sword. So I ran to grab Sun out of the way. When he swung his sword, the only thing that was luckily sliced was my bag strap. He started to walk toward us with that evil grin. I was scared. Then he stopped walking as his grin disappeared into a painful expression on his face. I wanted to help him until he started talking to himself. He dropped his sword and grasped his head in agony. "NO! I CAN'T LET YOU HURT THEM!"  
>"HA! I'm taking control of this vessel so just go die off in my shadows!"<br>"Don't do this Tristitia! You're a guardian!"  
>"That's what she did to your minds! SHE ALTERED HISTORY THINKING I WOULD CHANGE!"<br>"Wha—?"  
>"Now go disappear!"<p>

The conversation he had with himself was in dreadful screams as he destroyed everything around him.

He was on a rampage with himself, throwing spells here and there. He casted a spell that was completely alike to the spell the person he fought on Earth casted. One of the blades scratched mine and Sun's arms. It stung so terribly that I began to cry. More chains came on a rampage. Sun was brave enough and took me running as she protected me. She took more wounds that made her cry even more, yet I think she was crying for a different reason. Even though I've only met Sun recently, I already consider her as a friend. And I couldn't stand seeing two of my friends in pain.

"He's having a fight with his inner self" Sun told me.  
>"What do you mean?" I asked her.<br>"Inside of us there is our polar opposite. Now Blaze is currently fighting with his."

I looked at Blaze in agony. He sprouted wings from his back and flew around trying to hit the wall as hard as he could.

"It pains me to see a friend in agony…" Sun added as a tear slowly fell from her eye.

[Yahiro/Blaze's POV]

This battle has been raging on inside, and I've hurt two of my friends in the process. I was really confused as to why Tristitia was doing this, but one thing was for certain. He absolutely cannot be allowed to take control of my body. Even if it means that he will disappear into oblivion. This is MY duty as a Guardian.

Changing him wasn't an option anymore. He's wounded Sun and Anne in this battle, it was time I ended it. Tristitia was getting really exhausted as the battle raged on, and so did I. one thing was to my advantage. I noticed that he was beginning to fade. His legs were barely visible and his attacks in the void were getting weaker and weaker while mine got stronger and stronger. "This is the taboo or giving you more than half of my power." He said, "It's getting more accustomed and absorbed to you. Therefore killing me." The battle still raged on even after he had said those words.

The battle was almost to a close when he grinned and said that even if he disappears, that the world was bound to be doomed by destruction. I bound his body in chains as he gave me the most confusing statement he has ever made. "I may be gone, but you will never escape fate that your God set up for you! There will come a day when that woman's spell will fade and alter history once more! You will be hated and killed! Heed my words… I actually wanted to change… but I couldn't… I'll miss you my friend." Then he faded into oblivion with a confused mind and heart.

I came back to reality feeling immense pain. My body felt as if it was burning and I felt my fangs grow a bit. I felt a burst of power released from my body as I transformed into a dragon. I grew twice as big as the manticore we fought in the past. My hands turned into massive arms with claws of dark colour. I had scales black as coal and a tail that I couldn't control correctly. I was in despair. I couldn't concentrate and I panicked. I didn't know how to turn back into my human form. Anne and sun stood behind a cover of trees as they looked at me with terrified eyes. I let out a mournful roar to the sky and prayed to God… "Why?"

I mourned and banged my head on a huge rock as I cried out. I didn't know what to do. Then finally I gave up trying. I lay on the mossy ground with nothing but despair and confusion. I began to think about Tristitia's final words, confused of why he tried to kill me of and destroy Altera as well as harm my friends. I sat there for three hours then Anne and Sun left my presence. And I don't blame them seeing as though I look like a monstrous ten ton flying lizard. I stayed there for 3 days and 2 nights. Every morning I woke up, I saw dead orcs and goblins on the ground where I lay my mouth. The smell was ecstatic so I took a bite out of the pile and was enticed by the taste. I didn't know if someone was giving this to me or if I killed them in my sleep. But either way, I was really thankful.

On the third night, I heard footsteps coming to my direction. I opened my eyes and saw some people bringing corpses of orcs and goblins. Then the person which appeared to be their leader laid his hand on my snout. "You poor thing. Your friends have left you because you've shown your colours." He was saying as he stroked my snout, "Yet one of your friends asked for our help to keep you safe and alive." Then he smiled at me. And as these people left, they stopped by a tree where a person with a hood over their head bowed and thanked them. After a few minutes of simply staring at me, that person had left as well. Once more I was alone in that dreary isolated place at the swamp. Cold, alone in the dark until that one bright light of sun shone on my face.

As the morning came and the sun was rising, I was still alone. For three days, I've only been eating orcs and goblins. Waiting, trying to figure out how I could turn myself back into human. Now a surprise came for me; it was Sun and Anne. They walked toward me from the trees, walking as their bodies were shaking in fear. Anne stopped halfway. "Why did you stop?" Sun asked her. Anne couldn't reply, so Sun just slowly continued to walk toward me as she was shaking more than when she was walking with Anne. I laid my head softly to the ground to calm them down but Sun was terrified and ran back to Anne. I let out a sorrowful groan. So Sun took another attempt, still shaking from fear. I closed my eyes pretending to fall asleep and both of their shaking eased a bit. After a few minutes of fearfully trying to approach me, Sun finally reached me.

Sun put her warm hand on my snout. Not only was her hand warm, her scent was magnificent as well. Sweet aroma of roses and freesias emitted from her. "I'm sorry…" she apologized, "Being taken over by some monster and disappearing must have been painful." I listened to her, "I lost my friend to a dragon, a harmless dragon at least." I was confused by her words. I opened my eyes and looked at her. "… And now he's gone, I don't know what happened to him. But, if Blaze was here I bet he would've gone on a quest with us again." I then took my left arm and wrote "I am Blaze" on the ground with my claws. Anne and sun smiled as a tear rolled down Anne's face. They apparently thought that I was consumed by a dragon, and they were relieved that I wasn't.

Then another person entered the scene, a familiar person. "Why are you a dragon in a place and time when it is so inappropriate?" Argenta asked me. I tried to talk but all I let out were groans. After a few seconds of silence, Argenta surprised me with a question. "So, you're trying to say that you don't know how you can turn back to your human form?" I nodded my head with a hopeful heart seeking a more complicated answer to all this. But then she asked me how stupid I was and told me something I didn't expect. "Concentrate, focus on what you want to do, I mean that is how you cast spells don't you?" I reached to the conclusion that I was indeed dumb… I was an idiot! An imbecile! How the heck did I not think of that!? After all those questions I remembered that I was a pessimistic thinker. When I turned into a dragon, I panicked and didn't rationalize and think. So I thought that I may never be able to turn back into a human. Then as soon as I transformed back, Argenta beat me to the ground. Anne and Sun couldn't do anything but watch as Argenta pulverized me to a pulp. She called it a "lesson" for me, that this is the consequence every time she finds me in a sorry state like I was in earlier. As she scolded me, she had a grin on her face while enjoyed beating me for half an hour.

When she was finally satisfied, she told me news that I was displeased of hearing. Geraint's dead. He got killed by Leviatha, the Sea Dragon which they sealed years ago. The seal was destroyed by a traitor in the royal court, Bishop Ignacio. Argenta went straight to the point and asked for the scroll Geraint had given me. When I gave her the scroll, she gave me another one. "This one is for you. Keep it safe no matter what." She told me, "I'm going to see Kasarana to find out where we can find the Green Dragon's lustre now that that idiot's gone. Anyway, I'll give your regards to Yuni." She then left us right then and there. I wanted to leave already. But even in all of that, my consciousness couldn't withhold itself.

I woke up at home. My whole body felt sore, even worse than when Argenta had just beaten the living ghost out of me. I tried to get up but I couldn't. There was a red liquid in a glass on the bedside table, and for some reason I was craving for it. I took a sip of it. Fortunately it wasn't poisonous. "How's the potion?" a person asked me as she came through my door and to my surprise, it was Sun. "By the way, you were sweating so much so Anne changed your clothes for you." She said to me as I tried to get up once again, only this time Sun stopped me. "Are you not afraid of me?" I asked her, yet all she did was smile in reply.

I found a note on my bedside table the eve of that day. Sun had already left, and everybody was downstairs eating supper. I finished the potion they gave me and went downstairs to join them. I sat next to Anne as mother looked at me with entertained eyes. She sighed as she stood up to serve me supper. Then I looked at Anne and noticed that her face was red, so I put my hand on her forehead to check her temperature yet she suddenly turned away. At that moment her face went redder. I guess she was still afraid of me.

I opened the note that was left on my bedside table and it said this: "Hi! I hope you already feel better in a couple of days. I'll be doing commissions with my friends Jay and Xam in your absence… forgive me for running away from you at that time. It was simply because I was frightened by the thought that I lost a friend. Or at least that's what I thought. Tell Anne sorry for me as well, for dragging her with me as I left. Oh and also tell her not to worry about what happened earlier. It was inevitable. When you're done recovering, meet us at Lotus Marsh. There's a girl named Kiwi in the town. She knows where I am most of the time I'm going to spend time in the marsh. Until we meet again. –Your dear friend, Sun." I followed Sun's instructions and told Anne exactly what Sun had written for me to say. However Anne simply just ran to her room with and even brighter red shade on her face. Mother sighed at me once and asked me if I knew what Anne did earlier and I said no. Then mother noted my clothing. "She changed your clothing for you." She inquired. It took me a while before I understood. My cheeks were warm with embarrassment.

I stayed home for a full two days. Each and every time I saw Anne, she always had a funny reaction whether it be hitting her head from being flustered or even plainly running to her room. I thought of it as somewhat adorable. That was until she accidentally punched me in the face when I ran into her in the halls. I invited Anne and Nunnally to go with me to Lotus Marsh. Though Anne was a wee bit hesitant, she still chose to come with us over staying in the city. Lotus Marsh was always a dreary place. It was humid and hot even if it was nearing winter, and it's always overcast. The town had very little human population. Only a few humans were there and most of them were Dromaji. Human-like creatures that have animal characteristics like their ears and tail, their sense of smell, their speed, and their instincts.

Anne couldn't help but take pictures of the people as well as the place, I found it gullible. I went around town and asked for a person named Kiwi just as Sun instructed me. I was directed to a small shop where a little Dromaji child stood in front of and sold the store's goods to travellers as well as the townspeople. We approached her to ask her about Kiwi and to our surprise, this girl was Kiwi. I was expecting more of a mature elven girl.

She welcomed us into the store after I asked her about Sun. Then she served us some tea out of red berries and a root from a tree while she told us to wait for her to come back to this place. So we waited. We waited seconds, minutes, and hours. I grew impatient and worried. I asked Kiwi where Sun could have gone, and told me that she went in the Ancient Archives from a commission she received from the archer trainer along with her two companions. And when I asked her where the Ancient Archives were, she had no clue. I wanted to look for Sun so I asked Anne and Nunnally if they wanted to come along. Naturally they said yes. Then to find out how to get to the Ancient Archives, I had to ask the archer trainer Ajari. She clicked her tongue when we introduced ourselves.

"Tch! Humans, what do you want?" she asked us.  
>"Greetings, I'm looking for an elf of the name Sun."<br>"What's her to you? Have you business with that adventurer?"  
>"Yes. I am a companion who wishes to join with her soon. Would you be so kind as to direct me to a place named Ancient Archives." I asked her kindly to which he refused.<br>"Why would I trust a humans like you?" she asked menacingly.  
>I leaned in close to her ear and whispered to her "Because I'm not human anymore."<p>

She then pushed me away and looked me in the eye with the terror on her face. Then she told us the directions with a hesitant voice. Soon after, we thanked her properly by paying her gold and apologized for just asking her questions out of the blue. Then we left for the Ancient Archives.

I instructed Anne and Nunnally to stick as close to me as possible while I was emitting an ominous aura to keep the monsters away from attacking us as we passed through the Archive. Then we suddenly reached a dead end. However, there were voices and a battle going on the other side so I broke through the wall. That's when we found them. Ancient weapons were attacking them in the room where a trap triggers every fifteen seconds. Xam was beaten down by the trap while Sun and Jay strive to dodge both the trap and the attacks coming from the monsters and the machines. I casted chains and destroyed the weapons and the hostile machines. I advised Sun and Jay to retreat back with Xam and the others as I held the enemy there. They quickly grabbed Xam and ran for the previous room. Even though I emitted a great amount of mana, these monsters paid no heed to it. In the end, I had to destroy them all.

We camped outside the gates of the archives. Their wounds were not fatal so Jay and I were quickly able to heal them. I told Jay to stand guard at the encampment while I took Anne and Nunnally back to Lotus Marsh. I had Nunnally get on my back while I carried Anne in my arms and flew to Lotus Marsh. I paid Kiwi 20 pieces of gold to have them lodge at her shop until my return. As I flew back to the camp, monsters already raided. Jay and Sun defended the encampment while Xam lay unconscious. I summoned chains from the void and impaled most of the monsters out of their way. These fights have been bearable for me, but for Sun and the others these battles are too much. I healed them both and told them to rest as I stood guard. I emitted an ominous aura once more around us so that monsters wouldn't near us in the night.

I stayed up until morn. The sun had risen and the first one to awake from their slumber was Sun. "Did you sleep well?" I had asked her. She then smiled at me and said yes. Her smile enchanted me. I asked her what her commission was about and apparently the chief of a Dromaji tribe had gone missing. Not just any Dromaji tribe chief, it was the tribe chief that Sun asked to watch over me in the days that I was stupidly stuck as a dragon. I told her that I was going to help her out because I was indebted to both the chief and her. Then she enticed me with her smile once more.

As soon as Xam woke up and recovered, we went back to the archives to finish the job. The enemy weren't as hostile as yesterday, so we went through the dungeon without any problems except for the traps. With the aid of an entity guiding us through the archives, we reached the final chamber of the archives. There was an eerie presence in the chamber. As soon as we stepped into the chamber, the teleportation device deactivated and we were sealed inside. We were lured to an even more devastating trap, a trap set by the same entity. We were betrayed.

A giant mechanical cat fell from the ceiling and began to attack us. It spat fire and ice as well as a missile that could freeze a person's entirety. We had a hard time destroying the deleterious machine. Jay could barely block its attacks, Xam couldn't land a crucial blow on it, Sun's arrows kept on being deflected, and I was the centre of its attention. Its attacks were continuously beating us down. I took a serious blow and it threw me to a wall, knocking the breath out of me. In those moments I was about to get slashed by its claws, Sun pushed me back and the tip of a claw slashed her back. Her blood was seeping through my garments as I caught her while Jay finally caught the machine's centre of attention. I was in shock of what I had just witnessed. My friend was dying.

While Jay had the machine's attention, I focused on healing Sun. Her wound started closing, yet blood still flowed from the tip of her lips. I continued healing her as hard and as fast as I could while Xam and Jay fought the machine. She then looked at me and whispered words that broke me. "I don't want to disappear yet…" She closed her eyes and fell unconscious. "TAKE HER OUT OF HERE!" Jay shouted to me as he continued to fight the machine. I condemned the machine and wanted to destroy it. I took a health potion into my mouth and administered it to Sun. I laid her down as I drew my sword. My mind was clear with nothing but destruction.

I told Jay and Xam to get out of the way and take care of Sun. I was enraged by this monstrosity. I casted chains and impaled its limbs, pulled them each one of them apart bit by bit. It launched a missile for me but it didn't hinder me from tearing it apart piece by piece. I cut of its tail, its ears, eyes and lastly its neck. I was missing something… The presence was still there. I closed my eyes and looked for the presence and found it on a pedestal. I took my sword and walked toward it. When it had noticed that I knew where it was, it begged for forgiveness and to spare its life. I was unshaken. I had only one thing in mind. I raised my sword as I said one spiteful word. "Disappear."


End file.
